The Green Janitors Sustainable Initiative, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), on Saturday. expressed its displeasure over the lack of waste maintenance at the Marina and Pathfinder waterways in the Badagry area of Lagos State.
Mr Abdul-Salam Ashade, the Executive Director of the NGO, disclosed this at the 2021 World Environmental Day Celebration in Badagry.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the event was “Ecosystem Restoration”.
According to Ashade, the NGO was at the Marina in early May to clean up the waterways, as well as sensitise the residents on the dangers of dumping refuse close to the waterways.
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“We appealed to them to find a viable means of disposing off their refuse, terrestrially.
“However, today (Saturday) when we came here to mark the 2021 World Environmental Day, we discovered that our sensitisation message fell on deaf ears because of the mammoth waste we met again,” he said.
He said that people who consumed sea foods got from the Marina would also be in danger as such aquatic foods would have consumed plastic deposits which, he pointed out, were poisonous.
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Ashade said his NGO and other agencies were at Marina to rid the water surface and its environs of plastics and toxic wastes.
He commended people from different organisations who volunteered to team up with his NGO.
According to him, the volunteers are from the Fishery Department of the Lagos State University, Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, Lagos State Waterways Authority, Lagos State Waste Management Authority and JANIRAK Recycling Company.
Mr Larry Dayo, a representative of the LAWMA, said that the waste deposit on waterways could damage boat propellers.
Dayo gave kudos to the Lagos State Government for creating agencies saddled with cleaning up the waterways.
He expressed his joy at the many volunteers who turned up for the cleaning exercise.
In his remarks, Prince Olu Kosoko, the Founder of OK Foundation recounted the need to invest in education and sensitisation.
Kosoko said that there was need for structures and platforms that would educate, empower and sustain the people.
He expressed his happiness at what the NGO was doing, which he pointed out was done out of passion.
NAN reports that an army of volunteers, who had passion for safeguarding the ecosystem, picked plastic wastes on the waterways. (NAN)
