The Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Environment, Mr. Toyin Onisarotu, on Saturday restated the state government’s commitment in ensuring a sustained environment and managing its waste at the dump sites.

He said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sideline of commemorating the International Coastal Clean-up Day held in Lagos.

Onisarotu stressed the need to imbibe the attitude of having a clean environment through engendering self-compliance, good personal hygiene and waste sorting.

“We want to encourage residents of Lagos State to sort their waste at source, from our households, placing cans, bottles and pet bottles by reusing rather that discarding them.

“We hope to reduce the amount of waste going to our dump sites, land is very scarce in Lagos; We don’t have enough space for wholesome dumping of refuse.

“And as such we hope to reduce the waste that goes to our dump sites by 50 per cent.”

According to him, the ministry is planning to improve and encourage the material recovery system and to encourage the framework for material recovery.

“We want to partner with producers of plastic packaging material; we need to have end users; we need to have collection centres and recycle most of the products.

“Our drains are clogged up with pet bottles and nylons; this is not good for us; it costs the government a lot of money to clean up drains and waterways; it is not encouraging.

“We need to constantly keep our waterways and coastal line free from dirt, as Lagos is a coastal city and it is not only a day event. We should sustain the habit to ensure our coastal ways are free from dirt.

“We should learn not to dump waste into our waterways and oceans; we need to protect our sea creatures, which end up in our bodies.

“We need a clean Lagos, clean air to live and safeguard our health.” (NAN)

•Photo shows Gov. Ambode