…urges Lagosians To Embrace Recycling, Circular Economy.
The Managing Director/CEO of the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), Dr. Muyiwa Gbadegesin, has encouraged Lagos residents to stop discarding waste, but tap into vast economic value by embracing recycling and circular economy.
He said this in his office at Ijora-Olopa, while interacting with a team of journalists, who sought his views on the future of waste management in the state. He pointed out 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”.
He highlighted LAWMA’s long-running 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.
He 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 are to reduce waste, manage waste sustainably, and extract maximum value from waste,” he stressed.
He 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.”
The LAWMA helmsman 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.