Determined to check the continued despoliation
of the environment, the Federal Government yesterday said plans are
underway to ban the use of plastic bags in the country.
Minister of Environment, Mrs. Hadza Mailafia, who dropped the hint
during the 2013 World Environment Day celebration in Abuja, said
government would favour the use of paper bags in their place.
Mailafia, who said the ban would take effect from January 2014, also
said the Federal Government was also considering banning the use of
sachet water.
According to her, the move to ban the plastic
bags are necessitated by the numerous health and environmental hazards
associated with their use.
The minister noted that unlike the
paper bags that could easily decompose, plastic bags are
non-biogradable materials which could stay in the soil for years,
contaminating water sources when washed into the rivers by the rain.
Relying on the Food and Agriculture Organisation, FAO’s, statistics,
the environment minister said one-third of global food production is
wasted from farm to stock which is equivalent to 1.3 billion tonnes of
food annually; while an estimated 870 million people go hungry
worldwide. She said more than 20,000 children under the age of five also
die daily from hunger.
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