.urges residents to embrace waste to wealth practice

.to create two modern recycling hubs in schools

By Olasunkanmi Akoni

Lagos Waste Management Authority, LAWMA, has urged residents to stop discarding waste, but tap the vast economic value by embracing recycling and circular economy, saying, Lagos is targeting to recycle 90 per cent of waste generated.

Recall the state Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, had earlier revealed that Lagos generates between 13,000 to 14,000 tonnes of waste daily.

Managing Director, LAWMA, Dr. Muyiwa Gbadegesin, said this in his office, Ijora-Olopa, while interacting with a team of journalists, who sought his views on the future of waste management in the state.

Gbadegesin stressed that what people call waste is actually not waste, but money, and should not be thrown away, noting that many people were making a good living from collecting waste materials and selling to recycling companies at good rates.

According to him, “Waste is inevitable; it’s a byproduct of human activity. But we cannot continue to simply dispose of it, we must move towards a circular economy where we reduce, reuse, and recycle. We envision a Lagos State where at least 90% of our waste generated is recycled.”

Gbadegesin stressed on LAWMA’s consistent campaign for every household in the city to have separate bins for general waste and for recyclables like paper, PET bottles, cans and textiles, which recyclers could collect and give money or something of value in return.

“The private sector is actively involved in collecting waste from homes to dumpsites. We want them to also take part in the recycling business. It’s more sustainable when the government creates the framework as we are doing, and the private sector drives it,” he said.

Gbadegesin, also disclosed that upon full decommissioning of Olusosun and Solous landfills, Transfer Loading Stations, TLS, would be built, as the sites would be finally turned to Materials Recovery Facilities, MRF.

“We plan to build transfer loading stations at Olusosun and Solous. The vision and plan is to reduce waste, manage waste sustainably, and extract maximum value from waste,” he stressed.

The LAWMA boss noted that the agency’s partnerships went beyond large corporations to start-ups like GreenDeall, which planned to build a recycling plant at a closed dumpsite at Abule-Egba, to recycle a certain class of plastic, into oil for heavy industries.

Gbadegesin said, “Later this year, we plan to launch a deal book that will break down all the opportunities in the waste management sector. We are also creating a base map of the locations. People will be able to go to the LAWMA website to select areas of waste management they are interested in.”

He however, expressed LAWMA’s commitment to environmental education and youth involvement in waste management through LAWMA Academy, where a dedicated team goes round schools on weekly basis to sensitize the pupils, in addition to a monthly internship programme, where undergraduates and graduates come to learn modern waste management.

“We are also looking to bring together alumni, because what we preach is for them to return to their communities as LAWMA ambassadors. We have also expanded our waste management coverage to primary schools. Mr. Governor kindly gave us 2,000 recycling bins which had been distributed to schools, and we introduced a recycling company to collect the plastic waste from those schools,” he stressed.

Gbadegesin further disclosed that LAWMA recently received approval from the Ministry of Education to create two modern recycling hubs in schools located in Yaba.

“We want to do modern recycling in those two schools, to become the location where students from the school and around the Mainland area can come and see.

“They will be the ones running it. In the hub, we will have bins for metal, paper, organic and all other fractions of waste. The belief is that if we continue this and we do it well, in the years to come, the children will have imbibed the attitude that waste is wealth.”

Gbadegesin, identified human behaviour as the biggest challenge in waste management, hence, his agency’s consistent effort at bringing the younger generation of residents to the forefront of unlocking values.