Leading stakeholders in Nigeria’s manufacturing and waste management sectors have applauded the Nigerian Bottling Company Limited (NBC), for its innovative initiatives aimed at optimising plastic packaging and waste management in the country.
Speaking during the annual NBC Stakeholders Forum themed, “Packaging & Waste Management: Key Drivers, Challenges and Solutions,” they commended the company for leading efforts to ensure the eradication of the menace of plastic waste in the country.
The Keynote speaker and Special Adviser to the Ogun State Government on Environment, Ola Oresanya, applauded NBC for holding the forum, which would go a long way in entrenching the culture of internal self-regulation in the fight against waste.
“I want to congratulate NBC for their consideration for the environment. Inputting together this forum for open conversations around issues affecting the environment, NBC has demonstrated its commitment to finding a solution to the issue of waste management in Nigeria. This is commendable because not many manufacturers have this kind of forum where the facts can be laid out” he said.
The Special Guest of Honour at the virtual session and Minister of Environment, Mahmood Abubakar, represented by the Director of Pollution Control and Environmental Health, Charles Ikeah, echoed similar sentiments and commended the company for organising the Stakeholders Forum and for being at the forefront of the fight against environmental waste.
Abubakar highlighted the federal government’s commitment to awareness creation, enforcement of relevant regulations, as well as provision of an enabling environment for private sector participation.
President of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Ahmed Mansur, urged other organizations, particularly in the manufacturing sector, to emulate NBC’s ambitious commitment to rid the environment of plastic wastes and prioritize the lifecycle of their packaging materials in their production processes.
In his remark at the virtual, Managing Director of NBC, Matthieu Seguin, said the company would continue to collaborate with key stakeholders in the plastic packaging and waste management value chain to ensure that challenges in the waste management ecosystem are converted to viable economic opportunities for Nigeria’s teeming population. Seguin, who spoke on the economic significance and reusability of plastic bottles, said: “We believe every package has value and life beyond its initial use and that it should be collected and recycled into a new package”.
He further reiterated the company’s recycling sustainability policy thrust saying that “as manufacturers that use plastic packaging, we want to be part of the solution. The message here is clear: we want all our pet bottles back. Our goal is that we will recover 100% of our primary packaging and recycle 50% by 2030”.
Seguin, who is also the chairman of the Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA), an industry coalition dedicated to building a sustainable recycling economy for the food and beverage sector, also called for industry-wide collaborations to ensure the sustainable management of plastic waste.
“We also recognize that we need to drive a larger, industry-wide discussion if we want to see the level of change in society that will make a difference in the environment and go a long way towards advancing our World Without Waste agenda, and shape the future of waste management in Nigeria,” he said.
