Ogbonnaya Ikokwu, Umuahia
A waste to wealth management hub in Abia state has concluded training on the recycling of plastic bottles in Umuahia, the state capital.
Exam session
Speaking at the end of a practical activities for the trainees at Nsukwe Ubakala, the state coordinator Mr
Otah Nwoke, said the event marked the end of a three month training conducted by the hub in conjunction with Chicasons recycling hub and carbon African.
Sorting in progress
He revealed that the hub which has been in the state for more than one year, has carried out training and retraining of stakeholders, scavengers and other people to acquire the requisite knowledge of plastic recycling and management.
He said, “The training translates to a program named waste to wealth management. It entails the training of people to know the practical knowledge of putting waste to wealth in their environment.
“The exercise of today is the practical engagement aspect of the training. We have done two phases of exercise where the trainees were taught environmental waste Management and entrepreneurship, so they can be self reliant. But today’s exercise is the final stage of practical activity where they are taught how to basically manage the plastic and group them and identify the different types of plastic that exists.
“They have also done their NABTED examination at the end of the training exercises. So today’s event is to capture all the activities we had here in the hub.
“We will engage ourselves into different levels of entrepreneurship of plastic recycling management. This days it is not uncommon to see people scrapple for plastic at different events and they bring them to us. we buy the plastic, crush and shred them for proper recycling for different uses, there’s a high rate of awareness of plastic recycling in the state today.
“Our hub is open for people to bring plastic for us to buy. We are going to commence much more activities now because we have created enough awareness and we are going into shredding and other processing aspect of plastic. We have people bring more plastic and we will deal with it and see what we can achieve. People can bring their plastic here they are paid cash, that’s why it is self reliant and engaging”.
One of the trainers, Egu Ebenezer said the program is intended to give knowledge empowerment in environmental protection and wholesomeness to the students.
He pointed out that the training
was geared towards achieving Knowledge transfer and exposure to global warming and environmental protection in the state.
He said, “That’s done by removing the plastic from the gutters and bringing them to where it will be recycled. It shows that we are encouraging the practice of environmental wholesomeness.
“We are expecting that the trainees will start training others because it’s environmental based entrepreneurship. What we do now is basically value addition to the plastic before sales”.
Mr Obioma Nnabuihe, operations manager of waste to wealth management said the
trainees are ready for the job and with the knowledge that have been impacted into them.
“They are all collecting plastic and making money from it apart from the regular jobs”, he said.
One of the trainees Mrs chinweaku Onyeabor, commended the management of the hub for the opportunity to under go the training.
“I’m ready to venture into the business of plastic recycling, the economic potentials are enormous when the plastic are sorted, separating the covers and the labels, washing, sun drying and crushing the plastic the value appreciates.
“Products like hangers, chairs , wool can be produced with recycled plastic.The price is higher when the plastic is well processed” she pointed out.
Another trainee Mr Kalu Okoro Kalu, said he acquired a whole lot of knowledge in plastic recycling management courtesy of the training.
According to him,”I can be able to identify any type of plastic now because I know them. I have started pick plastic from dustin buckets and sale them for money.
“Researches have proved that Nigerians can recycle only 14 per cent of our waste. So there a lot of opportunities in recycling business.
“People can make money from picking, washing shredding plastics. Some can even open a hub if they have the money. There’s a whole lot opportunities that if it’s identified it can help someone to make money from the business. I commend the organizers of this program they did well for exposing us to this knowledge”.