December 13, 2022

The Federal Government says it is set to convert all the waste from slaughtered animals in abattoir to wealth in the country.

The Registrar, Environmental Health Council of Nigeria (EHCN), Dr Yakubu Baba, made the commitment in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.

Baba said that the efforts would not only improve the cleanliness and healthier environment in the abattoir markets but would as well provide manure to farmers in the country.

According to him, the council is coming up with public health solution, whereby all the wastes in the abattoir will be converted into wealth by providing manure to our farmers.

“The council wants to ensure that wastes that come out of any slaughtered animal will no longer be wasteful, rather such wastes will be converted into manure and the manure will be sold to our farmers.

“The solid that will come out from the biogas digester is a manure that can be packaged and sold to farmers.

“The liquid content also will be bottled as a liquid fertiliser and sold to the farmers as well.

“The environmental health officials are working towards going into the market introducing the system to the people. So, it’s a win win situation,” he said.

Baba explained that the biogas is an environmentally-friendly, renewable energy source, adding that it’s produced as organic matter, such as food or animal waste.

He said that the liquid and the solid wastes from the slaughtered animals were being converted into a biogas digester, which would eventually, digest the wastes into a byproduct.

According to him, by-product is something which is produced during the manufacture or processing of another product.

He said that the biogas is part of the modern system of building the abattoir markets into global standard, by ensuring that the markets are environmentally friendly.

He said that butchers operating in the abattoir are using tires to smoke the slaughtered animals, thereby causing increase in air pollution and climate change in the areas.

He said that the introduction of biogas system would help to mitigate the effect of climate change and provide solution to gas flaring at the abattoirs.

“The council have noticed that there is a lot of air pollution because the butchers are using tyres to smoke the slaughtered animals.

“Now, we decided to conduct our research in various abattoirs and discovered that tyres are carcinogenic and after using them to smoke the animals, they have residual effects on the meat.

“This carcinogen is a substance, organism or agent capable of causing cancer, it may occur naturally in the environment.

“This means that the residues will remain in the meat which could possibly leads to increase in cancer in our body system.

“So, the council is putting every effort to ensure that all these system that are not healthy and safe stop and we make sure the modern abattoir we are constructing is environmental friendly to everyone and even to the animals,” he said.

The Registrar said that the council will ensure that the issue of sanitation in abattoirs and even in other markets improved in the country.

He said that the Federal Government had provided strategies and preventive measures to ensure that environmental programmes and policies are implemented effectively.

He urged the state and local governments to embrace the strategies and programmes provided by ensuring that abattoir markets and the environments are healthy and safe.

“It is the responsibility of the state and local governments to buy or key into our ideas and programmes by ensuring that such ideas are implemented at their levels.” (NAN)