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FUTA Professor fingers indiscriminate plastic refuse dumping as a major cause of cancer
The Professor of Biochemistry, Mrs. Folasade Olajuyigbe warned consumers to desist from unguided microwaving polybicarbonate plastic food containers as high temperature can force this bisphenol A to leach out of the plastic container into the food and avoid unguided recycling of plastic containers and drinking of liquid in satchet nylons exposed to heat to avoid cancer and also to practice proper disposer of all forms of wastes.
The incessant spreading of cancer even amidst Nigeria’s acute inadequacy of medical facilities and medical manpower has taken its toll on about four hundred and thirty eight thousand Nigerians with over seventy eight thousand eight hundred people reported dead in the last five years according to International Agency For Research on Cancer.
In curbing these challenges, Enzyme and Environmental Biotechnology Researcher has fingered indiscriminate dumping of plastic wastes as the major causes of cancer and proffered possible means to ameliorate it.
In an interview with the Director, Central Research Laboratory of Federal University of Technology Akure, and Head of Department of Biochemistry, Professor Folasade Olajuyigbe, she disclosed that plastics contains carcinogenous chemical compound called Bisphenol A which is capable of causing cancer when directly or indirectly taken into the body.
Statistics from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey and Centre for Disease Control and Prevention showeda that 93% of 2517 urine samples of children and adults contains this endocrine destructive chemical, Bisphenol A.
The chemical compound Bisphenol A is produced in large quantities for industrial use in the production of polybicarbonate plastics and it is commonly found in bottle water, shatterproof windows, eyewears and epoxy resin that are used in coating some metal food cans, bottle tops, baby feeding bottles, polythene bags, pure/satchet water nylons and water supply pipes.
She explained that bisphenol A and benzene leaches from improperly disposed plastics and nylon wastes into the soil and then to water body thereby contaminating the water for both human, fish and other aquatic animals. She riterated that when bisphenol A is indirectly eaten by human through fish, crayfish, prawns and other seafoods, it results to Cancer in human.
Aside consumption of fish and other seafood other means of exposure to bisphenol A are through diet, air, water, dust and beverages. Bisphenol A leaches into food from the protective internal epoxy resin coatings of canned food and from consumer products such as polybicarbonate tablewares, food storage containers, baby feeding bottles, satchet water nylon among others.
The Professor of Biochemistry, Mrs. Folasade Olajuyigbe warned consumers to desist from unguided microwaving polybicarbonate plastic food containers as high temperature can force this bisphenol A to leach out of the plastic container into the food and avoid unguided recycling of plastic containers and drinking of liquid in satchet nylons exposed to heat to avoid cancer and also to practice proper disposer of all forms of wastes.
Agbo Michael Onoja
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