The Director-General of the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), Prof. Aliyu Jauro, and Executive Secretary, E-Waste Producer Responsibility Organisation of Nigeria (EPRON), Mrs. Ibukun Faluyi, as well as the chairman, Lagos Council of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr. Adeleye Ajayi, have commended ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue.

Both spoke at the 2020 ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue held at the Welcome Center Hotels, Lagos on the theme, ‘E-Waste in Nigeria: Challenges and Opportunities’.

For the NESRA boss, who was represented by the Head of Port Operations in Lagos, Mrs. Ezinwayi Udechukwu, the event is timely as the number of e-waste in the country continues to soar.

The DG commended ITREALMS Media for the ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue and looked forward to the outcome of deliberations to be made available to the agency for continuous engagement with enlarged stakeholders in the country.

The Executive Secretary, EPRON, Mrs. Faluyi, on her part, applauded ITREALMS Media for raising the tempo of discourse on electronic waste in the country with ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue.

This effort, she described as novel, especially coming from a media organisation like ITREALMS Media and depicts concern of the media house for a better society in Nigeria in spite of growing number of electrical electronics waste, arising from increase in use of technologies.

She noted that Nigerians depended more on technologies during the recent nationwide lockdown over the ravaging COVID-19.

Faluyi believes that awareness creation can never be enough due to demands and usage of electrical and electronic devices cannot abate.

She canvassed for more synergy between the media in carrying out its fundamental function of enlightening the public and social enterprise like EPRON.

She commended the management of ITREALMS Media and partners for this stride, when ordinarily, some organisation would have chickened out as the year is about to end, more so with the effect of COVID-19.

The Lagos NUJ council chairman, Mr. Ajayi, equally added his voice to the commendation, stating that the future is bright with this stride by ITREALMS to engage the Nigeria’s populace on the positive use and disposal of e-waste.

Earlier in his welcome address, the Editor-in-Chief of ITREALMS Media inc, Mr. Remmy Nweke, disclosed that they were concerned with the rise in the country of wastes which are not properly disposed of eventually.

This situation, he said, was worsened by the random importation of electrical and electronic devices into the country without consideration for the end-life of such gadgets and attendant implication to the economy and social development.

Nweke also cited for instance the latest Global E-waste Monitor 2020; a collaboration of the Global E-waste Statistics Partnership (GESP) and International Telecommunication Union (ITU), which disclosed that some 53.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of electronic waste was generated worldwide in 2019 alone.

He noted that this figure was up by 21 per cent within other statistics of the past five years and called for caution among developing countries and Nigeria specifically given the daily rise in number of subscriber-base which stood at 285,259,320 connected lines with some 198,961,361 active and 151,063,413 active internet data subscriptions across all the Nigerian Mobile Network Operators by technology, as at July 2020, even as new devices may become the order of the day as Nigeria will soon join countries with fifth generation (5G) deployment.

He said that ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue aligns with the commemoration of the International E-waste Day (IeWD) 2020.

Nweke recollected that ITREALMS e-Waste Dialogue was initially scheduled for October 14 but due to COVID-19 lockdown and #EndSARS protest nationwide, it had to be rescheduled to Thursday, December 17, 2020 as part of the Nigeria Internet Waste Dialogue.

ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue was supported by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Association of Licensed Telecom Operations of Nigeria (ALTON) and Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) among others.

•PHOTO: L-R; Executive Secretary, E-Waste Producer Responsibility Organisation of Nigeria (EPRON) Mrs Ibukun Faluyi, Editor-in-chief/Lead Consulting Strategist, ITREALMS Media inc. Mr. Remmy Nweke, Head, Port Operations Lagos, Mrs. Ezinwayi Udechukwu who stood in for Director-General, National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), Prof. Aliyu Jauro at the 2020 ITREALMS E-Waste Dialogue held at Welcome Centre Hotels, Lagos on Thursday