I can vividly remember my undergraduate final year research project which was related to the environment. I quoted one of Ken Saro Wiwa's thoughts in environment which stated thus:
"The environment is man's first right, without a safe environment, man cannot live to claim other rights be they economic, social or political".
Ever since, I've been giving deep thoughts to those lines and each day as I grow up, I see how true they are.
Yesterday was Saturday and I was given to joining the state-wide sanitation exercise to clean my immediate environment. Over the past weeks and months, I didn't take notice that th garden by the house had been terribly filled with plastics and polythene thrown after use of packaged products. I tasked myself to pick out the plastics and polythene to make the farm green again.
When I began to take shots,it as laughable but at the end of the exercise, I was happy that I did. Out of the the plastic wastes, I was able to recover some good amount of empty plastic bottles whish initially contained water or soft drinks. I was able to collect as much bottles which reminded me that they could be recycled for some environmentally benefiting projects.
In the next weeks, I will be using plastic bottles as seedling container for my intended tree project. Each bottle would be cut into two halves and each side will be filled with composted soil as nursery to grow trees and other economic seedlings.
This would become an avenue to make some related researches which would be published here on steem. Few weeks ago, I had a discussion with my youth group on church on how we can get a land for agricultural purposes. We couldn't secure one. Thinking about the reuse of the plastic bottles helped me to figure that we could actually raise a seedling plantation with plastic bottles.
With the development, I can be pretty sure of saving some cost and as well helping the reduction of the amount of plastic waste that is burnt to destroy the atmosphere and as well dumped to destroy fertile agricultural soil.
One may look at that brief action on a lighter note, but that simple act can save many years of costly rehabilitation of a once fertile soil. Consider a situation where the plastic bottles and polythene bags are hurried into the soil. Over time, they may create a layer within the soil that would not allow plant root penetration.
The truth is here that we can consciously engage in simple environmental sanitation activities to save us from spending so much money to rehabilitate the environment.
Below are shots of the garden soil before the cleaning exercise.
All pictures were captured by my Infinix Hot 7 phone camera. Below is a grid of photos screenshot from my phone gallery.
