…As LAWMA insists on enforcement of use of waste bins by residents January 2023

By Kingsley Adegboye

Members of Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria, AWAMN, who gathered in their hundreds in Lagos recently for their 2021 Annual General Meeting, said circular economy is the way to go when it comes to waste management and its sustainability in Nigeria.

Speaking to journalists on the sideline of the AGM, AWAMN’s President, David Oriyomi who said circular economy is the new approach to waste management now, noted that the era of collecting refuse, transporting and disposing it by waste managers had gone.

This is coming as Lagos State Waste Management Authority, LAWMA, has reiterated its resolve to begin enforcement of use of waste bins by Lagos households in January 2023.

LAWMA’s Managing Director, Ibrahim Odumboni disclosed this during AWAMN’s AGM.

According to Oriyomi, waste managers are now looking into the issue of recycling to make sure that all the recyclables are sorted out, sold to the relevant sectors for the purpose of recycling thereby generating income for waste generators and pickers.

Hear him: “Our association has written to the state government for collaboration and to ensure that it pilots the affairs of recycling and circular economy.

“Recently, we even travelled outside Nigeria to see what they are doing vis a vis the issue of circular economy. We are glad to tell you that we are making a bold move in this direction to make sure that we reap the most out of recycling.”

Also speaking, the association’s image maker, Olugbenga Adebola, said AWAMN is now thinking of handling waste in a modern way, by going the circular economy way, pointing out that: “What we are introducing to Lagosians through this circular economy is to ensure that every waste that is generated in Lagos State is segregated and sorted out into different waste components such as plastics, aluminium, papers and organic wastes.

According to Adebola, the segregation will encourage recycling, it will encourage waste conversion, and you can convert your waste into energy, electricity, even through the waste, you can generate organic fertiliser.

“Circular means it is rotating. So your waste is not a waste unless you decide to waste it. The association is keying into the policy of LAWMA on the two-bin system, of which every household must now have two bins in their frontage. One of the bins is colour-coded in blue, the other one is in green, the blue one is expected to collect all the recyclables such as plastics, aluminium, papers and others,” he said.

He said that these recyclables are taken to a Material Recovery Facility where they are also sorted out into different waste components for proper recycling and conversion, stressing that the other two bins of green colour, were expected to be used to collect organic waste, which would be transported to another facility to be converted to organic fertiliser or biogas.

Odumboni said that LAWMA would collaborate with AWAMN to ensure that households use bins to appropriately dispose the waste they generate, insisting that households in the state ought to have two bins – one for plastics and the other for organic waste, thereby, ensuring sorting of waste, a step toward circular economy.

He said that the authority had printed out the first batch of 250,000 abatement notices, and from Oct. 1, would issue them to households that do not own bins, pointing out that the law stipulated a minimum fine of N50,000 and maximum of three months imprisonment for erring individuals.

“So, we are going to enforce it now. We are going to give them a notice on October 1, and by January 1, 2023, we will start enforcing the law,” Odumboni said