World Cleanup Day: SRADev, partner cleanup beach, conduct brand audit

In line with the global new momentum to keep the coastal environment free of plastic and other debris, the Sustainable Research and Action for Environmental Development (SRADev Nigeria) in collaboration with Beach Samaritans on Saturday 21 September 2019 joined other environmental activists around the world to mark the World Cleanup Day 2019.

The outdoor exercise held at the 500 meters length of Kids Beach Garden, opposite Elegushi Beach, Lekki, Lagos under the auspice of the #breakfreefromplastic, a global movement to stop plastic pollution for good,  culminated in a Brand Audit campaign of waste collected based on materials, product and layer types.

Since its launch in September 2016, nearly 1,500 organizations from across the world have joined the movement to demand massive reductions in single-use plastics and to push for lasting solutions to the plastic pollution crisis. SRADeV Nigeria (a member of BFFP) share the common values of environmental protection and social justice, which guide their work at the community level and represent a global, unified vision.

Executive Director, SRADev Nigeria, Dr. Leslie Adogame, said “We join in the believe in a world where the land, sky, oceans, and water is home to an abundance of life, not an abundance of plastic, and where the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat is free of toxic by-products of plastic pollution.

“It is time to hold corporate bodies accountable to the pollution of our environment, and this is what the result of the brand audit will showcase.

“The brand Audit was planned to mobilize massive citizen muscle with a common mission so corporations can no longer frame the issue as one of only consumer responsibility. It is important that corporations know what they are sending to our environment that can’t be recycled. So, we need to also know what is recyclable or not recyclable locally within our city. A demonstration of the brand audit where some of the collected waste materials were classified based on material, product and layer types”, he said.

Corroborating him, Senior Programme Officer, SRADev, Mr. Victor Fabunmi, said “As the ocean continues to serve resourceful purposes such as life sustenance, it must not be left as dumping ground for all sorts of waste.”

The initiative is to bring systemic change through a holistic approach tackling plastic pollution across the whole plastics value chain in support of the upcoming national policy on plastics management, focusing on prevention rather than cure, and providing effective solutions.

“In today’s world the principles of environmental justice, social justice, public health, and human rights should lead government policy, not the demands of elites and corporations. This is a future we believe in and are creating together”, said Leslie Adogame.

President, Beach Samaritans, Sola Alamutu, said the organization came up with the initiative about five years ago to ensure that the country coastal areas are clean up, adding that a lot of people visit the beaches for party and other activities but nobody want to take up the responsibility to clean up the beach.

“We decided that cleaning the beaches is cleaning Nigeria and other coastal areas. So, we came up with clean Nigeria, one beach at a time.”

She noted that the event coincided with the World Coconut Day as well as Peace Day which made it very interesting and why a lot of people came to the beach for the day.

She encouraged participants at the event to imbibe the idea of protecting the coastal environment and refuse single use of plastic, saying that plastic pollution is a big global challenge affecting the aquatic animals and the environment.

Over 90 volunteers (male/female) drawn from all sectors including school children, graduates, environmentalists, civil servants, journalists and many others took part in the one-day exercise.

World Cleanup Day (aka WCD) is a global social action program aimed at combating the global solid waste problem, including the problem of marine debris. The next World Cleanup Day is the 19 September 2020.