Prof. Paul Fatoba of the University of Ilorin has called on industry operators to treat industrial wastes before release into the environment to curtail health hazards.
Fatoba, who is of the Department of Plant Biology in the university, made the call while presenting his paper entitled: “The unrecognised are also important”, at the 183rd Inaugural Lecture of the university on Friday in Ilorin.
The don, who teaches Life Sciences, urged industry operators to evolve environmentally friendly strategies to reduce pollution by treating emissions of gaseous pollutants and particulate matters for a safer environment.
According to him, emissions from industries are usually detrimental to the environment, especially in the plant kingdom, which is a source of food for humans.
“The wastes produced by industries are usually without pre-treatments. In many towns, cities and villages, the untreated waters are used to raise vegetables during the dry season.’’
Recall that the effects of soaps and detergent wastes investigated on the seed germination, flowering and fruiting of tomatoes and okra were found to have contained heavy metal loads
In his view, the study showed that the danger in consuming groundnuts and cowpeas irrigated with untreated effluents waste water was detrimental to the growth and fruiting of the two vegetables and posed serious threat to health of people.
Stressing that the pollution loads and the ecological risk assessment of soil heavy metal around a mega cement factory indicated that the area was exposed to serious pollution dangerous to all eco-system.
Therefore, reiterated that plants were very important in the purification of the environment and urged all tiers of government to embrace a forestation and do away with deforestation.
The don also urged all on the prudent use of forest resources so as to reduce the loss of biodiversity or living organisms.