By Lincoln G. Peters
An environmental analyst and Lab Manager at the Liberian Petroleum Refining Company (LPRC) has called on the government to institute measures against plastic waste and urban mining to prevent future disaster in Monrovia.
In an interview with journalists Wednesday, 21 December 2022 in central Monrovia, Mr. Sam P. Jallah raised a serious concern against mining activities in the Jallah Town community, and the need to control plastic waste.
Mr. Jallah is a Mathematics and Chemistry lecturer at the African Methodist Episcopal University (ANEU), and United Methodist University (UMU).
He said if nothing is done by the government to address the rapid urban migration and construction of houses in the Jallah Town area, the country will experience a huge loss.
Jallah warned that if measures are not taken, Liberia will in a no distant future repeat the mistake of neighboring Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone has had a tragic incident when landslide killed many people.
“I was part of the team that did the research during the Sierra Leone landslide. During our research, we discovered that the landslide happened as a result of plastic and undermining of the area for the construction of human habitation,” said Jallah.
“And that is what we are now seeing in Jallah Town,” he added.
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“The way that Jallah Town is looking, and people are just mining it because they want to build, will cause a major landslide in a no distant period,” Jallah continued.
He also predicted that 50 years from now, Liberia will have limited or no crops growth and production in some areas that have a large quantity of plastic waste.
To prevent that, he suggested that the government has to regulate plastic wast disposal.
According to him, plastic waste takes very long to get rotten, saying only a limited portion of Liberians are aware of this.
“The wrongful disposal of plastic waste is a serious threat to our crops growth and production,” said Jallah.
“When you walk on the street, and in the community, you see plastic and other robber waste.”
After some time, he said, you don’t see them when rain falls or when people wrongfully dispose of them.
According to Mr. Jallah, those plastic wastes are kept under the soil and are covered by limited sand.
“And so, fifty years from now, if the government doesn’t put things in order, Liberians will plant crops and [they] will not grow,’’ he cautioned.
