Waste recycling: AEPB official advises Nasawara varsity students

An official of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB), Mr. Atiku Abubakar, has advised postgraduate students of Department of Geography, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, to do research in resource recovery in waste management.

Resource recovery in recycling is a practice that refers to the collection and reuse of disposed materials such as empty beverage containers.

Abubakar made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Abuja, on the sideline of a threeday field visit by the students to Gossa waste dump site.

The students on the first day of the field trip visited the Lower Usman Dam, Bwari, the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) on the second day and Wupa Treatment Plant and Gossa Waste Dump Site on the third day.

Abubakar said he would advocate that the students also conduct research into treatment of waste in order to find solutions to environmental problems.

“Look, all the things you are seeing on the dump site are resources, if they can go into research on resource recovery, the sky is just the beginning for them.’’

He said the Gossa waste dump site is about 505 hectares according to the Master Planbut said encroachment had reduced the site to about 350 hectares, adding “and we had to secure where we are dumping now, we had to quickly fence 91 hectares.’’

“Other part of the 350 hectares would be given to us, wherever we have things that have to do with waste management integration.

“What we treat here is mostly domestic and medical wastes,’’ he said.

He, however, called on the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to increase funding for the waste treatment to ensure environmental sustainability.

Earlier, Prof. Nasiru Idris, the head of department of Geography in the university, said that it would enable them to suggest measures to address the present environmental problems.

He said that it would enable them to suggest measures to environmental problems, especially in relation to goals one and four of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

No fewer than 249 postgraduate students of the department participated in the field trip. (NAN)