#SaveOurSeas: Cadets at Maritime Academy of Nigeria produce life-jacket with plastic waste
Marine Engineering cadets of the Maritime Academy of Nigeria, Oron, Akwa Ibom have recycled plastic bottles into materials for life-jacket.
This development got the Marine and Environment Care ,which is committed to advocating for cleaner oceans by ending plastic pollution of the marine environment, really excited, because it is a result from its recent engagement with the Academy.
At the conference on cleaner oceans in Mid-February, the group encouraged cadets on actions for reducing and recycling of single-use plastics such as PET bottles, and doing so through the Clean-up Club established as part of the programme.
So, shortly before the lockdown in March occasioned by the #COVID19, the HND 2 Marine Engineering cadets, guided by one of their lecturers, Mr. Eugino Antai, further researched on knowledge gained from the engagement to end marine plastic pollution and came up with the idea of using the plastic bottles stuffed in the material to make a lifejacket for their semester project on Entrepreneurship.
Marine and Environment Care appreciates the decision and action of the 32 cadets to begin with a little contribution towards saving the marine environment from plastic pollution.
For the process, the cadets gathered used plastic bottles from the café and got a discarded lifejacket for the outer part of the material.
A total of 20 plastic bottles were then stuffed into the jacket and properly sawn back in shape.
The swimming instructor on STCW tested the completed lifejacket in the Academy’s life pool, for efficiency of purpose.
This is one way of helping to keep our oceans healthy, by not allowing plastic waste find their way into the marine environment.
Several studies have established that there are over 5 trillion pieces of macro and microplastic pieces floating on the oceans.
It is also a fact that these plastic waste endanger marine mammals; marine mammals and fishes ingest microplastic plastic and their digestive passages are blocked causing them to die of starvation. At other times, they suffer strangulation or suffocation from plastic.
