Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), has bagged an award of execellence following its outstanding achievement in the creation of wealth through solid waste management.

Organised to reward outstanding performance in environmental management, the award was put together by the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC) in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology.

LEKE ADESERI, South West Regional Editor and OLASUNKANMI AKONI met Oresanya who spoke lucidly on the activities of LAWMA in the past few years. Excerpts;

Graphic detail of waste generation in Lagos State Waste generation in Lagos is a reflection of activities in the city and wherever human activities are, wherever where there is life the bye product of the dynamic environment is waste and if an environment is dynamic, its active there must be bye products.

It’s only a healthy industry that will generate waste, its only a healthy, wealthy people that will generate waste, so when you see Lagos as the commercial nerve centre of west Africa markets when you see Lagos from that perceptive, you will know that there is no way Lagos can run away from being the headquarters of waste generation of west Africa and in Nigeria you have more than 60 percent of industries in Nigeria located in Lagos so definitely more than 60 percent industrial waste is located in Lagos.

You have Lagos as a compact city state in Nigeria where the population density is more than 3,000 people per square kilometre so definitely, the average national population is about 25 of persons per square kilometre but Lagos is more of 3,000 of persons per square kilometre, so there must be definitely be clustered waste generation because the waste is really not dispersed anywhere, waste is competing with human existence in such a clustered environment.

Its expected for city like Lagos where you have clustered settlement like Lagos you must have challenges of waste generation.

What is the daily waste generation like in Lagos?

Apart from the data that we have, let’s look at it from the empirical details of it. An average person of Lagos generate about 0.5 kilogram of waste daily per person and this is a city with over 18 million people 0.5 kilogramm per person, empirically you have more than 9,000 metric tonnes of waste on daily basis.

But even now, the disposable income has increased in Lagos and from the last evaluation conducted we have between 0.6 and 0.7 kilogramm per person per day that means in Lagos right now we are generating more than 10.000 metric tonnes of waste on daily basis

What sort of waste do you encounter in Lagos?

Well the Lagos state waste scheme is cocktailed, where you have perishable, plastic, papers, metals, nylon and bottles. In Lagos, perishable and components is about 40 per cent, nylon 20 per cent but by volume, you see more of nylon than other organic waste. Organic and perishables are component of waste on the road and they are higher than the nonorganic.

Progress on waste sorting project
We are going on very well. And I am happy to tell you that we are making progress on it. That is what we call community sorting centres or recycling banks. We have the intention of having over 1000 in the next one year. So far, we have established over 40. We are using our mega income to manufacture this.

Some corporate bodies have signify there interest to partner with LAWMA in establishing the centres.

Those recycling banks which are community sorting centres are meant to encourage the act of sorting from the source. And to give a little value to our waste, like we say in LAWMA, waste is not waste until you waste it. If you keep waste, it will become a valuable resource. That is the beginning of another new industry.

The sorted waste becomes a raw material for those who want to turn light organic waste into fertilizer, those who want to paper into toilet roll, and those who want to turn nylon and plastic into refuse bag and so on. We scheme of collection centres at our waste banks. We have also established a re-used centre where Lagosians are allowed to bring in their used cloths for them to decongest there wardrobe. And we give them some items in return.

We also have electronic waste collection point. We are already working with an organisation on it and they have signified their interest to partner with us. They will be encouraging people to bring ten used computers and collect one news computer. That is exactly what the recycling banks are meant to do for Lagosians. And they growing day in, day out. The electronic waste collection centre will bring a new way and new life into the waste collection system in the state.

Challenges of the recycling bank  lunched recently

The project is still young, and what we are seeing now is very encouraging. We have more communities yearning for more of this bank. The demands for the banks have outweighed the supply. But we are not buoyant enough to meet the demands. And we have assured them that we will get it across to them very soon.

What we have found out in the last couple of days is that we do not have enough storage capacity in those banks. Like the plastic buy bags programme to the dump areas to exchange the waste for money.

Plans to expand the recycling banks

We already have plans to keep some of our recycling containers, and to increase the frequency of mop up collections in the state. We intend to also increase our storage.

Scope of PSP working with LAWMA

Right now we have 434 PSP operators working with LAWMA. Majority of them are doing very well because of their commitment to the job.  They have acquired some specialised equipments for waste collection. Some of the equipments include trucks which they bought for over N7 million. When we discovered that some of their vehicles are warning out, and they are not buoyant enough to buy new truck quickly, so we decided to invest in the procurement of trucks.

We were able to secure 100 new trucks which serve as the first tranche, before the end of the year the second tranche will be distributed. To make sure that over time old trucks will be face off of the system.

We have established the market for the operators because people are now conscious of paying for the waste.

The few areas that are bad, we are working on it to assist the operators to succeed. And until we discover that the operator is immune to education then we may decide to sack. But it is not in our joy to sack any operator.
They have invested in the business; we must support them to strive in the industry.

How do you recover your investment
We have a very good arrangement for repayment. And most of our PSP operators are responsible to pay. And we already have an economic model that ensures that all the money is paid back to the investors.

How much
It varies and one need to see the economic details of the agreement through the bank and it will be unfair to pre-empt the bank and the operator. What LAWMA is doing is to serve as the regulator and to make sure that the operators do not defraud the bank.