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Tessy Igomu
In Nigeria, scavenging for used plastic bottles has become a trending business and thriving source of livelihood for many. At social events all over the country, the sight of women and children scouting for and jostling to pick used plastic containers are common features.
The children mostly move around in pairs, begging guests to part with empty water containers. They also fall over themselves and often engage in fistfights in a bid to outdo each other to gather the largest numbers of containers.
Hospitals, markets, dumpsites, drainages, waterways and refuse bins are also places usually visited by these scavengers.
The containers are later sold to individuals for packaging drinks like zobo, kunu, fura de nono, tiger nut drinks, palm wine and other local brews popularly consumed by many Nigerians. They also come in handy to package edibles like cashew nuts, groundnuts, chin-chin and cooking oils.
As it stands, these indigenous drinks are adjudged by their consumers to be more healthier and nutritious. It is, therefore, common to see people hawking them on the street, in markets and gridlocks, and mostly with iced cubes to attract customers. Most offices also have them handy as some business-savvy employees sell them to augment whatever income they receive at the end of the month.
But now, people are beginning to ask questions. Many discerning minds are raising pertinent questions about the process of preparation and the environment where these drinks might have been brewed.
Health experts recently raised the alarm about the inherent dangers of consuming drinks repackaged in used bottles, especially those picked from hospitals. They warned that such containers have the potential to harbour deadly communicable diseases that could put the health of consumers at risk and possibly cause an epidemic.
Obviously disturbed by the trend, a medical practitioner who identified himself as Dr. Emmanuel, took to the social media to warn consumers of local brews to take extreme caution to avoid becoming terminally ill. He disclosed that some hospital cleaners picked up used bottles to sell to drink vendors.
He also lamented that the health implications of their action was in the fact that some of the plastic containers have been used by patients suffering from infectious diseases like tuberculosis, hepatitis and Lassa fever, among others.
“Some of these bottles were used by patients who had tuberculosis, which means they coughed out their saliva into it. Some were used by patients with Hepatitis B and other infections that can be transmitted; it could also be Lassa fever or Ebola viral infection,” he said.
He further expressed fears on the possibility of the bottles not being properly sterilised, hence the high chances of disease transmission. He explained that the unbecoming development could be responsible for why some people become terminally ill and cannot explain the source of their sickness.
Speaking on how she usually scavenged the Oke-Afa, Isolo, Lagos, dumpsite with her two children for plastic bottles on Saturdays, Fatima Abubakar, a kunu seller, vouched for the safety of her containers. She said aside from using the bottles to package her product, she also sold them to other drink vendors as a way to make ends meet.
She claimed that she dedicated a lot of time and energy to ensuring that the used plastics were thoroughly washed and sterilised with warm water and salt before filling them with drinks to sell to the public.
“I wash the bottles many times and later soak them in warm water with salt overnight. Since my children also take the drink to school and my husband also drinks from them, I have to be very careful,” she said.
All the drink vendors that spoke with the reporter admitted to sourcing their bottles from hospitals, party venues and dumpsites, but insisted on taking extra precautions to have them well sterilised.
Awa, a food and drink vendor, said she personally brewed and packaged the drinks by herself. She also said she insisted on proper hygiene in the cleaning process before bottling.
She maintained that she took extra care in the production and bottling of her drinks, insisting that none of her customers had ever had any cause to complain since she went into business.
Most consumers who spoke on the safety of consuming their favourite local drinks from used bottles, were also quick to justify why they always buy from trusted vendors and those whose appearances pass off as clean.
A few, however, expressed fears despite patronising the drink vendors.
Seyi, a hairdresser in Arena Market, Oshodi, Lagos, said the temptation to consume chilled tiger nut, kunu or zobo drinks during business hours was usually irresistible. She, however, said, most times, after enjoying the drinks, she would be continuously tormented with the thought of how well the drink vendors washed the containers before reusing them.
To Abimbola Adesanya, a nurse with one of the government hospitals in Lagos, consuming drinks packaged in used containers was tantamount to dying in instalments. She noted that, since the drink vendors aim mainly for profit, they hardly care about where they source their containers.
“In the wards, you have some patients urinating inside plastic bottles, spitting and even stuffing cotton wool used to clean festering wounds. At the end of the day, you would be amazed to see the cleaners packing them inside bags to sell.
“This thing is like a production chain and these people do not care about the health implications of their actions. It is all about the profit. The only solution to ending this menace is to have them licensed and regulated by government. With that, the regulatory body or government would conduct regular checks on their products and facilities as well as ensure that standard compliance and quality production is adhered to,” Adesanya said.
Speaking on the dangerous trend, Chukwurah Wike, chief medical director of Kendrick Hospital, Beesam, Mafoluku, Oshodi, said the authorities should stop the practice.
He asserted that the practice was more pronounced in Lagos and wondered what those in charge of health and the environment have done to stem the tide. He said that he usually ensured that every container used within his facility was collected and incinerated.
“These drink sellers don’t follow safe health procedures in preparing these drinks. This practice should not be encouraged. The health implications of using these bottles are much. If such bottles are not properly washed, they could lead to health emergencies. They can harbour harmful bacteria, which can lead to gastrointestinal tract infections, typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera and worm infections,” he said.
On how the local brew makers can attain minimum standards of cleanliness and produce guaranteed healthy drinks, a health expert with the Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Council who did not want his name in print said new bottles should be used for packaging drinks. He stated that there were cheap and clean customised bottles produced specifically for such drinks in the market. He stressed that the idea of washing used bottles with detergents did sound logical in any way.
Further highlighting the danger of reusing plastic bottles, the French magazine, Santé Magazine, in one of its special health pullouts edited by medical professionals, said, although it might appear harmless, it could have grave consequences.
The experts said the used containers automatically become a breeding nest for bacteria. They further observed that when a bottle is reused by the same individual, there could be 20 times more bacteria in it than in a dog’s food bowl and 100 times more than in a toilet bowl.
“The danger triples when it is used by others. The plastic can release toxic substances into water and drinks, especially if the bottles are exposed to sunlight,” they said.
The Green Guide Health Advocates, an international safety platform, advised also against reusing bottles made from plastic (polyethylene terephthalate, also known as PET or PETE).
“Such bottles may be safe for one-time use, but reuse should be avoided. Studies indicate that the containers may leach DEHP, another probable human carcinogen.”
Jane Nebe, a project researcher on the DirtPol Project, corroborated some of the claims of the French magazine and revealed why she stopped consuming kunu and zobo, which were her favourites. She said people should be forced to ask hygiene-related questions when it comes to drinking from reused plastic bottles.
“You should ask, is this zobo or kunu the second, third or fourth end use of this container? How clean was the cleaning process? Is it possible that the used plastic container has absorbed molecules of the substances previously contained, which may not be easily removed by mere washing? Is one comfortable with using a container that has touched another’s lips,” she queried.
