The Managing Director of NENIS Autos Care, a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Mrs Osasoduwa Agboneni, on Saturday, May 27, 2023, urged Nigerian youths to key into recycling business to create wealth.
Agboneni gave the advice during a workshop organised by NENIS to celebrate Children’s Day at Egbin Thermal Station, Ikorodu, Lagos State.
The workshop had ”Waste to Wow: Transforming Automotive Waste to Functional Art” as its theme.
Some 50 students from five schools participated in the workshop, where they were trained to use waste woods, irons, tyres and glasses to make wall mirrors and centre tables.
NENIS organised the workshop in collaboration with the Nigeria Institution of Mechanical Engineering.
Agboneni urged the students to see recycling as a way of life for a safer environment.
“Recycling should be a way of life. Apart from generating wealth, it will make our environment clean,” she said.
Agboneni urged the three tiers of government to create the enabling environment for recycling business to thrive.
Dr Yakub Bankole, Dean, College of Engineering, Lagos State University of Science and Technology, said at the event that waste management was a challenge world over.
Bankole urged governments to give more attention to recycling as a strategy to empower more Nigerians.
”It will be better for them, instead of channelling their energy into ‘fast money-making’ and going into drugs,” he said.
According to him, government is trying to combat climate change as a means of protecting the environment.
“For this reason, we need to to know how to manage waste,” he said.
Earlier, Prof. Robinson Ejilah, the Chairman of the occasion, said that the programme was geared toward sensitising youths about embracing recycling.
Ejilah, a Professor of Engineering at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi, said that it was important to teach the youth the right attitude to managing waste and ensure a safer and cleaner environment.
According to him, the automotive industry is known to generate a high amount of waste.
“We want to inject the culture of sustainability to mechanic workshops where most of the vehicles that are no longer useful are recycled to functional use,” he said.
Mrs Jumoke Olowo, Creative Director of African Creative Sustainable Synergy Hub and Founder of Nigeria’s first waste museum, said that there was the need to turn wastes into functional use.
“That is why we train people to recycle waste to functional use,” she said.
Olowo said that wastes could be harnessed to create products instead of using fresh materials to create products at all time.
Oba Adeoriyomi Oyebo, the Obateru of Egbin Kingdom, Ikorodu, Lagos State, thanked the workshop organisers for efforts, and appealed for sustainability.
He said that such a programme would discourage youths from engaging in vices.
A participant, Miss Qasim Salamatu, a student of Luwasa Senior High School, Lagos, advised other participants to apply well the knowledge gained.
By Adepote Arowojobe
