It is that time of the year when a special attention is paid to the environment and how to make it healthier.  The theme of this year’s World Environment Day commemoration, “Only One Earth”, calls for collective, transformative action to celebrate, protect and restore the planet.
Environment is key to human existence. The quality of human life depends largely on how healthy the environment is. At this juncture, it will not be out of place to look at the meaning of environment by various authorities. The UK Environmental Protection Act of 1990, defines the environment as consisting of the air, water and land. The medium of air according to this authority includes the air within buildings and the air within other natural or manmade structures above and below the ground.
Here in Nigeria, a statutory definition of environment is provided in Section 38 of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency Act (FEPA Act). It states that the environment includes water, air, land and all plants and human beings or animals therein and the inter-relationship which exists  among these or any of them.
The importance of the environment to man cannot be over emphasised. Man needs the environment to survive. The environment provides food, shelter, air, water, timber, natural gas and fulfills all the human needs. Moreover, the entire life support of humans depends wholly on the environmental factor. In addition, it helps in maintaining various life cycles on earth.
There is a tendency for us in Nigeria to say that we have bigger problems in the country that need more attention right now more than the environment. But if the environment is not well cared for, how far can we go in solving these problems? How can we be in a good frame of mind to think of solutions to these problems if we are constantly faced with water, land, air, oil, noise, solid waste, visual pollution and other forms of environmental problems that pose threats to our lives?
A clean environment is essential for healthy living. The more we do not care about our environment, the more it will become polluted with contaminants and toxins that have harmful impact on our health. Air pollution like soot that  has bedeviled the state for many years can cause respiratory diseases and cancer, among other problems and diseases.
Painfully, waste management is still a big issue in the state just like many other cities and towns in the country. It just seems as if we do not know what to do with the huge waste being generated in our society every day. Some citizens have converted many road sides and median and other unauthorised places to refuse dumps, making it difficult for the little efforts of the government at keeping the environment healthy and clean to yield the desired results.
The Mayor of Port Harcourt, Allwell Ihunda, was in the news two days ago, claiming that the council spends about N800,000 daily on waste disposal and sanitation. As unbelievable as the amount may sound, especially going by the volume of garbage in the city, it goes to show that the council is concerned and taking actions towards the restoration of the Garden City status of the state.
But although more is expected of the authorities concerned both at the state and local government levels towards making our environment clean, it is obvious that they cannot do it alone. The residents have to play their own roles in making this our one earth clean and healthy. The five Rs of waste management quickly comes to mind here. The five Rs – Refuse, Reuse, Reduce, Repurpose and Recycle, a process used by businesses to make the outcome of their recycling programmes better through reducing the amount of waste  companies  produce can also be deployed by individuals in the management of their own waste.
We have to make deliberate efforts towards keeping our environment clean. Refuse not to litter the streets of the state and our communities aimed at keeping the state beautiful; reduce the harmful, wasteful, and non-recyclable so as to lessen the amount of wastes that will be dumped in the landfill, bearing in mind that the more material that gets dumped in the landfill, the quicker it fills, thus requiring more space for garbage storage which may not be easy to come by.   Let us form the habit of using reusable items for our daily use so as to reduce the amount of waste we generate. For instance, we can use napkins in our kitchens instead of disposable papers. We can reuse nylons and plastics.
Also, an item meant for a particular purpose can be kept for another use instead of discarding it after the first use. Last Sunday, some people from the Federal Ministry of Environment who were at my worship center to educate us on the five Rs said we can segregate our waste both at home, offices and business places, using the colour coded bins, reuse the ones we can and take the recyclable ones to recycling factories where they will be recycled and we will still be paid for them. How many of these factories do we have in our state, one would ask.
This is surely the way to go in order to have a healthy environment. There is the need therefore for sensitisation on this. The various organisations advocating for a better environment are not doing badly but they certainly need to do more. They also need the support of the government and the citizens to achieve better results.
It is also important that the government ups its game in dealing with refuse in our society. If you tell people to stop indiscriminate disposal of waste, provide them with an alternative place to dump their garbage. Provide more receptacles close to the people and ensure that those in charge of evacuating them are efficient in their responsibilities. Adequate punishment for defaulters will also help the people to be more committed to making our environment better.
Other forms of pollution, particularly oil pollution, which has been the lot of many communities in the Niger Delta region for decades, must also be looked at. Recently, there was a reported case of crude oil spillage at Touma-Ama Community Manifold in Bille kingdom.  An environmental rights group, Youths and Environmental Advocacy Center (YEAC), which brought the incident to the fore, raised the alarm over the far reaching consequences of the spill, including destruction of the marine life and wildlife habitat, contamination of drinkable water, pollution of farm lands and swamps, outbreak of fire, health hazards to man and many more, and called on Eroton Exploration and Production Company Ltd (Eroton E&P Ltd), the state and local governments  to ensure expedited measures were taken towards tackling the problem. What has been done about that issue?
Many companies are endangering the environment and by extension, the people, through  improperly channeling  their waste-water outlet and other environmentally unfriendly activities.
Yes, development and employment opportunities are important as they add to the quality of human life but they should not come at the detriment of the environment. If the people these employment opportunities and developmental activities are meant for are put at risk, the sources of their livelihood destroyed, diseases brought upon the people, then what is the essence of all the development and employment opportunities.
It is therefore, pertinent that in carrying out industrial and development activities, the protection of the environment by engaging in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and other precautionary measures should be a top priority.
World Environment Day is the biggest intentional day for the environment led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and held on June 5, every year since 1973, it has grown to be the largest global platform for environmental outreach.  Along with the theme, let us today begin to do things towards the preservation of the earth. If we cherish it, let us appreciate it and preserve it.

By: Calista Ezeaku