With the dumping of about eight million tonnes of plastic toxic wastes in oceans annually, there will be more plastics than fishes in these waters, the Federal Government lamented on Thursday.

Minister of Environment, Mohammed Abubakar, decried the development while speaking in Abuja at the unveiling of the study on sustainable alternative materials to plastics and innovative packaging and recycling technologies that meet market needs in Africa.

Abubakar, who said the study was conducted to reduce plastic leakages to the environment, noted that plastic pollution had become one of the gravest environmental problems, with impacts transcending national, regional and international boundaries.

He stated that Nigeria with a population of about 200 million people was generating about 1.5 million tonnes of plastic wastes annually, of which less than 10 per cent recycled.

The minister identified inadequate waste management infrastructure, poor behavioural attitude, unskilled waste collection workforce, indiscriminate dumping and burning of plastics, among others, as problems of plastic pollution across the country.

Abubakar noted that the study was in tandem with the Federal Government’s moves to address the challenges of plastics wastes in Nigeria in a holistic and sustainable manner.

To reduce plastic pollution in Nigeria, he said the Federal Ministry of Environment had developed a National Policy on Solid Waste and Plastic Waste Management, initiated a national plastic waste recycling programme and developed waste to wealth entrepreneurship scheme.

Also speaking at the event, the UNIDO Regional Representative, who was represented by an official of the organisation, Otu Osu, said plastic waste had become a problem with its physical and non-physical evidences.

Osu stated that according to World Health Organisation, plastic waste accounted for 12 per cent of the principal amount of total solid waste generated globally in 2016.

“Out of 242 million tonnes of plastic waste generated globally, only nine per cent is recycled and 14 per cent is collected for recycling,” he stated.

On the study, he said it would open up a lot of opportunities on legal frameworks, technology, administration and would also promote a secular economy for plastics in Nigeria and its economy.