Ten papers presented at the Taibah University 2nd Environment Day that opened yesterday stressed the risks posed by overuse of plastics despite the technology present to recycle.
The governor of Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality, Nabeel Mulla, said the organization was established 40 years ago and evolved gradually to set specific standards and regulations issuing 24,000 measures of standard, related to its work while it worked to build the citizens' awareness of their role and the whole society of the importance of preserving the environment and choosing manufactured products that do not harm human health.
Experts and officials of a number of private and public sector enterprises participated in the event. They shed light on the negative effects of plastic production on man and environment through their researches and papers, while building the individuals and society's awareness of the misuse of plastic products.
The head of the Environment Awareness Committee at Taibah University Abdul Badea Zellaly focused on human health in daily life practices and the harmful effect of mixing food with plastic. In his paper (How to avoid health hazard of plastic use), Zellaly said that many plastic products are complicated as they produce substances that are often cancerous and threaten human health directly, but they can be subjected to chemical treatment at the manufacturing stage, thus turning them into nontoxic products.
He also warned of contact between hot food and plastic products presenting a number of malpractices in this direction, especially in the use of microwaves. Zellaly also pointed out the dangers of lead in plastic and its effect on the central nervous system.
In his paper (The role of Food And Drug Association in limiting dangers of polluted food with other substances), Mustafa Qasim said the association includes three major sections and it had set clear policies for each section as well as concluded many studies, researches and applied papers on the food and drug products while inspecting sources and building awareness. Over 1,500 samples were removed from the market to be examined and tested within a plan to measure the size of pollution in local and imported food.
The representative of King Abdulaziz City of Science and Technology, Faris Al-Swailim, stressed the importance of recycling plastic products instead of discarding it and causing environmental pollution. Al-Swailim said in his paper that plastic disposals represent 17 percent of the total disposed wastes, indicating that it requires large land spaces to bury.
According to Al-Swailim, residents of Riyadh city dispose of 28,000 1-liter plastic packages daily. In 2006, the authorities confiscated more than 27 million CDs that are usually disposed of randomly.
Taibah University representative, Enas Taha, talked of the dangers of plastic to human health and how it causes many diseases, in her paper (The Effect of Plastic on Human Life), stressing the importance of building awareness of those dangers.
