Mr Mohammed Zakari, an environmentalist, on Friday called for more enlightenment of residents on dangers of dumping refuse in rivers. Zakari, who is the Director, African Climate Reporters made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna, said that dumping of refuse in rivers “is endangering aquatic animals’’.
According to him, water pollution is getting worse daily due to lack of awareness to the public on the dangers of throwing all sorts of refuse into Rivers, ponds and small lakes.
He said that human attitudes of dumping all sorts of trash, hazardous chemical and other poisonous waste into rivers were causing serious threats to the existence of aquatics animals and human being.
He said that serious water pollution in certain areas, can destroy the soil, kill plants, animals, fish, and even insects.
“Fish that live in polluted water source die off quickly, which in turn causes the death of animals that eat those fish for survival.”
Zakari said that his NGO had been organising enlightenments toward cleaning up the entire surrounding of river banks to protect animals in the water, and humans from water-borne diseases.
“Animals, who eat plastic often starve because they cannot digest the plastic and it fills their stomachs as such and this will prevent them from eating real food, in the end, the animals will die.
“There is a need to recycled all the wastes to save aquatics lives and other animals from the threat of hazardous chemical and other forms of garbage killing our water animals.”
The director said that more awareness was needed for the public to stop throwing all sorts of refuse into gutters.
“Also to let them know that these ugly attitudes destroy lives of thousands of aquatic animals which can equally affect humans.’’
He, however, advise the public to use fewer plastics, and take the recyclable options, while calling on Nigerians to use environmentally friendly detergents to stop chemical pollution.
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