The French Embassy in Nigeria has facilitated the establishment of a plastic waste recycling plant at Nile University in Abuja, with the aim to boost research, curb environmental pollution, and create jobs and wealth for Nigerians.
The Dean Faculty of Environmental Science, Professor Abdulhamid Mambo, while receiving the Plastic Odyssey Team, who are producing the Micro Plant, said the plant would aid the university in terms of research, and it would also be used to train students in the campus.
“The plant has a number of implications for us, in terms of research and training which is the business of the university, we are actually training students to become the leaders of tomorrow, so siting the recycling plant here in the university will enable us to train the next generation of the country’s manpower in environmental stewardship so that they will be able to know the implication of indiscriminate waste disposal.
“So, they are also going to be part of the collection and sorting of these plastics, and they are also going to see how this so-called waste will be transformed into wealth by the kind of value that will be added as a result of the recycling.
”So, I see the recycling plant as promoting research, I see it also as inculcating environmental stewardship culture both in the staff and the students and I see it also from the product that will come out of this plant impacting on both the local community, the university and the outside community,” Professor Mambo said.
He explained that sourcing plastic waste for recycling would not pose a challenge as the school has about 11,000 students and about 5000 plastic waste is generated from the varsity kitchen daily.
He also said that an arrangement is also in place with some relevant Non-Governmental Organisations to supply the plant with plastic waste.
Also, the Technical Assistant Manager, Plastic Odyssey, Mr Jean-Baptiste Grassin explained that they build projects around plastic waste management.
He said they have a solution called Plastic Recycling Micro Factory; which is a containerised system to transform dirty plastics into end-user products that we can use locally.
“So it is building a solution for plastic transformation and also bringing the opportunity for businesses to create jobs and the opportunity to build local infrastructure so that we can talk about construction materials, building blocks, planks to build furniture, pipes, and others.
“So, in the university campus we expect to be able to pilot the solution so that we can deal with the plastic wastes on campus and transform it into products that can be useful and take it from there, use the university as the pioneer and bring the solution to other cities and communities so that we can handle the plastic waste problem,” he added.
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