‘Why we must maintain an ecologically balanced environment’

An environment firm, Prigem Concepts, has said there is need to maintain an ecologically balanced environment, which means having a sustainable environment where human activities do not cause distortion to the atmospheric structure and nature.  The firm’s managing partner, Owa Raymond, said, “If available data is anything to go by, our consumption pattern, lifestyle modification […]

An environment firm, Prigem Concepts, has said there is need to maintain an ecologically balanced environment, which means having a sustainable environment where human activities do not cause distortion to the atmospheric structure and nature.

 The firm’s managing partner, Owa Raymond, said, “If available data is anything to go by, our consumption pattern, lifestyle modification and excessive rural-urban migration have stretched the already inadequate infrastructure.

“Wastages are associated with our population growth, post-harvest losses etc. With each individual waste generation put at 460-500kg per annum, that is huge for a population of over 190 million.”

He maintained that a lot of the problems are contributed to, by change in our behavioural pattern, which has evolved over-time and has largely been due to traditional disparity and family structure.

 He said: “We, as a developing Third World country, have among other developmental challenges, bowed to the seemingly better living culture of the white man but coping with the excesses is the biggest challenge.”

Polyethylene bags, which are non-biodegradable, according to him, is being used to carry goods while the developed countries are gradually moving away from these sorts of bags to recycled paper bags.

He noted that organic and food wastes could easily be converted to urea (bio-fertilisers, Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF and the CHP) to power homes and facilities as well as ensure food security.

Energy recovery procedures, if properly harnessed, could close the electricity gap for millions not captured on the grid through clean renewable energy sources.

“Getting our municipal solid waste (MSW) out of the roadsides is still an uphill task. The problem is that proper checks are not in place to cater for these excesses for proper environmental health of the citizenry, it is everyone’s concern,” he said.