NAN-AE-4
Enforcement
Abuja, Dec. 9, 2016 (NAN) The National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) on Friday expressed its commitment to ensure enforcement of Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) programme in 2017.
Dr Lawrence Anukam, the Director General of the agency disclosed in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
Anukam said that the entire necessary requirements for effective enforcement of the programme policy were already completed.
`It has been a long time we expecting compliance with the EPR programme, since 2011 till date and we will not continue to wait.
“We need to get this started. The bigger companies will then take the lead. They have the bigger market share and have more impact on the environment,’’ he said.
Anukam said that EPR was a strategy designed to promote the integration of environmental costs associated with goods throughout their life cycles into the market price of the products.
He said that the concept was first formally introduced in Sweden, in a 1990 report to the Swedish Ministry of Environment.
Anukam said that EPR had become a global best practice operated successfully in several developed and developing countries to deal with the environmental, social and economic challenging waste.
He said that the only way to reduce waste in the country was through the effective implementation of EPR.
Anukam said that the implementation of the programme would benefit the nation in terms of job creation, waste reduction as well as tackling other related environmental problems.
“We all know that waste is wealth, through efficient waste management, our nation can economically improve and develop,” he said.
The director general assured that the government would offer necessary support for the smooth running of the programme.
Anukam, however, urged the manufacturers, dealers, importers and other concern stakeholders to abide by the guidelines of the programme. (NAN)
VOE/AOM/GY
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Edited by Abdullahi Mohammed/Grace Yussuf