By Archibong Jeremiah/Otobong Clement
The Cross River State Commissioner for Environment, Engineer Mike Eraye has described the attitude of people in the State towards waste management as “not encouraging”.
Engr. Eraye who made the assertion in Calabar said: “The attitude of our people towards waste disposal is not encouraging; our mind is dead mostly when it comes to waste and it shows our value system. We need combine effort to get people to change their attitude towards waste management”.
The Environment Commissioner while conducting our reporters round some bin location in the State capital revealed that the worst area of lackadaisical waste management is “BPPP which is mismanaged by High Quality, we did our investigation”.
Sharing some of his experiences in waste collection Eraye said: “I have come to notice that the poorer the people, the more waste they generate. There’s a relationship between illegal settlement and waste example joints”.
As part of the strategies he employed to effectively ensure the State is clean, Mike said, “One of the first thing I did was to remap the waste location, update the data base and renamed every bin to its street which makes easier for identification, I grouped them and ensure that on daily basis they are attended to.
“We also discovered that people empty their refuse between evening and night as well as very early in the morning. This prompted us to start cleaning at night and in the morning, between 10pm and 10am”.
He further warned that, “Most people burn things in the refuse bin which is wrong, it’s metal and when you burn anything inside or near it you are damaging it, we need to stop that”.
Concluding he said: “We should try to cultivate a time culture of disposing our refuse, we are working on that and it will be the only solution. Here people will be fully aware of the time our people go round to park refuse so that they will dispose earlier and make it a routine, by this we all collectively will manage our waste”.
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