Waste water from manufacturers contain heavy metals—LASEPA boss

Waste water coming out of manufacturing companies, especially pharmaceuticals in Lagos, contains heavy metals and other obnoxious substances, according to Adebola Shabi, general manager/CEO of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency.

Shabi said this in Lagos last Thursday at the World Water Day commemoration held at Ogba, Ikeja.

“Waste water from most of the manufacturing companies in Lagos contains heavy metals which are dangerous to the environment and cause cancer. I appeal to industries to make sure that their waste water is treated,” he said.

The LASEPA boss said this practice was not peculiar to drug makers, but also extended to food and beverages, cosmetics, textiles, plastics, mines and quarrying, iron and steel as well as chemical sub-sectors.

He, however, acknowledged that 68 percent of manufacturing companies in Lagos had effluent treatment plants, stressing that businesses should not allow their activities to harm people and the environment.

“The water you have used can be re-used to wash vehicles. When you treat waste water, it becomes raw materials. There are no more wastes now,” he explained.

Shabi said standards were developed by the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) to address waste water pollution, but stated that the regulations in Lagos should be higher than that of NESREA owing to the state’s economic importance to the country.

Over 800,000 people die annually from drinking contaminated drinking and inability to properly wash their hands.

The United Nations said last week that waste water could be a valuable resource if treated.

“Improved wastewater management is as much about reducing pollution at the source, as removing contaminants from wastewater flows, reusing reclaimed water and recovering useful by-products [as it is about increasing] social acceptance of the use of wastewater,” said  Irina Bokova, director-general of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in her foreword to the World Water Development Report 2017 entitled, –‘Wastewater: An untapped resource’, quoted on the UN website.

ODINAKA ANUDU