Stakeholders’ Views on Ways to Reduce The Use of Plastic Bags and Its Environmental and Public Health Impacts in Sokoto Metropolis, Sokoto State, Nigeria

Background Plastic shopping bags are mostly used for disposing waste, transporting goods, packaging items, and sometimes transporting food items and drinking water. However, Inappropriate plastic and other waste causes huge negative impacts on environmental and public health (Schenck et al., 2019). One of the enormous challenges with plastic bags (PB) in developing countries is that they block sewage systems (Adane & Muleta, 2011; Muhonja et al., 2018). When sewage passages are blocked, this causes foul odors and a breeding ground for disease vectors, such as mosquitoes, which are responsible for the transmission of malaria (Rayne, 2008). For example, in India and Bangladesh, sewage blockage has led to several human deaths. In India, for example, flooding in Mumbai led to the demise of a thousand individuals. This flood was as a result of the blockage of storm drains by plastic bags (Somanathan & Gupta, 2009). Consequently, different states in India and governments across the world placed legislation to reduce plastic bag consumption (Somanathan & Gupta, 2009). In Nigeria, plastic bags are used in wrapping table water, biscuit, salt, ice cream and several other consumables. Polyethylene bags are used in all markets, restaurants, homes, and shopping centers in Nigeria. These bags are found in the entire streets and corners of the country, for example in Edo State and Ondo State in Nigeria (Aziegbe, 2007; Akinro et al., 2012). In Nigeria, most states and cities such as Ado-Ekiti encounter waste management problems as a result of poor management of waste (Adefemi & Awokunmi, 2009).