The General Manager of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), Mr Babatunde Ajayi, on Tuesday, said that about 25 per cent of diseases reported in hospitals in Lagos are caused by environmental pollution.

Speaking during a statewide and sensitisation seminar on the impacts of untreated effluent and air pollution on the environment for stakeholders, themed ‘treat your industrial waste responsibly and protect our environment for a sustainable future’, Ajayi stated that the scenario of environmental pollution has a huge negative effect on health, which is why health cannot be jettisoned from the environment.

According to him, it is also the reason the state government, through LASEPA, does not take the issue of compliance lightly, revealing that not less than 74 companies have been sanctioned for environmental pollution violations this year.

He added that the agency is more interested in complaints than sanctions, which is why it regularly conducts awareness and sensitisation exercises for stakeholders.

Ajayi underscored the importance of regular awareness programmes for industry representatives.

He added that, though it will be difficult to completely eradicate waste or effluent generation, attempts to stop one form of pollution often create another.

He, however, said that companies, no matter what, need to comply with waste-disposal regulations and environmental standards.

He promised that LASEPA will continue to engage with stakeholders to educate them and improve their understanding of the requirements.

He implored residents of the community to report any organisation they see discharging large volumes of effluent or untreated waste into the environment.

Also, a former General Manager of LASEPA, Antonio Ayodele, who delivered a lecture on ‘Sustainable approach to effluent and air pollutants management in Lagos’, disclosed that over 700 industries discharge effluent into the environment daily in Lagos, noting that while some do it in the day, others do it at night, sometimes through buried pipes.

He also revealed that about 60 per cent of Lagos water bodies often receive polluted waste, stating that, in the past, as a young person growing up in Lagos, he was often glad to swim in the lagoon, but not any more because of the polluted water bodies.

He observed that many industries in Lagos lack treatment plants, while those that do have them are unwilling to operate them because it is not cost-effective for them.

On his part, the representative of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Investment, Mr Oladipupo Adeyemi, thanked LASEPA for organising the seminar, as information mobilisation is key to compliance. He added that a good environment is good health.