Climate Change: Let’s stop the production of plastic, let’s recycle – Microbiologist

Sola Ojo

A senior lecturer in the Department of Microbiology, Kaduna State University (KASU), Ja’afar Isah Abdullahi, has called for a stop in the production of plastics in order to save the environment from avoidable disasters like floods.

The academic called for recycling of the existing plastics which could generate employment for young people and improve internally generated revenue for the government.

Presenting a paper entitled “Effects of Climate Change in the distribution of diseases”, during a one-day training for Kaduna journalists on science reporting organised by Climate Change Reporters in collaboration with Motherhood Foundation and Gusau Institute, Abdullahi said that Climate Change is bringing about new diseases, causing dangerous organisms to spread to new places.

‘Let the world stop production of new plastics while we recycle the ones we already have in place. Apart from saving lives, it will be an avenue to create jobs for unemployed youths and in turn, it will keep them busy thereby reducing social vices,’ he said.

According to Abdullahi, plastic end products such as water bottles, water sachets, polythene, etc, which end up in drainages, are partly responsible for floods and diseases across the country.

He said floods provide more breeding grounds for mosquitoes and other vectors which means indirectly, greenhouse distributes diseases.

‘First, we must admit that Climate Change is everyone’s problem. No agency, government or scientist can fix it for us and that is where the media come in. We are all in this together. Our lifestyle towards the environment must change,’ he said.

Earlier in a remark, Chairman, Correspondent Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Kaduna, Halilu Asma’u Yawo thanked the organisers for the training.

‘We are grateful for the opportunity given to our members to update their knowledge with regards to science reporting which has its technical way of reporting for both the scientific and none scientific members of the society.’

Director, African Climate Reporters and Chairman of the occasion, Nurudeen Bello, appreciated the level of responses from journalists and ‘we hope we keep the tempo so that journalists can be imbued with science especially when it comes to Climate Change’