Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), in partnership with Proganics Limited in Lagos weekend unveild plans to reduce to the bearest mimimum emissions from organic and food waste, thereby boosting recycling activities as well supporting the goals of the state’s climate action.
Announcing the plans at a one-day stakeholders’ forum with the theme “Feedingthe Future: Sustainable Organic and Food Waste Solutions for a Cleaner Lagos,” the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of LAWMA, Mr Olumuyiwa Gbedegesin, said the interactive session became imperative because nearly half of the 13,000 tonnes of waste generated daily in Lagos was organic, and roughly 6,500 tonnes of waste posed a serious environmental challenge.
Pointing out that sorting of organic waste is very critical for us to achieve the clean Lagos of our dreams, Gbadegesin said “This is because 50 percent of our waste in Lagos is organic. And that means we have about 6,500 tons of organic waste daily. And if we continue to take this organic waste straight to the landfill, what happens is that we will continue generating large quantities of greenhouse gas, specifically methane, which is a major contributor to global warming and climate change.“This is something we need to stop as a matter of urgency. Waste in general contributes about 20 percent to the increase in global temperatures that we’re all experiencing. So, that’s why the policy of the administration is to lower this organic waste and methane.“That’s lowering methane. Mr. Governor made a commitment to this at COP28 in Dubai. What we’re doing here is to put that into action by inviting stakeholders, facilities like hospitality, eateries, event centres, hotels, and also manufacturers of food and beverages, who are some of the major generators of organic waste.“And we’re enlisting them in the collection of this organic waste, separate collection and sort it. They’re going to be sorting it separately. And then we’re going to take that to an organic waste processing facility. And one of the partners here is with us today, a company known as Proganics, which has established a processing plant that can take about 200 tons of organic waste a day.“So, it’s a small plant, but it’s something that will provide a good alternative treatment source for organic waste from the hospitality sector. The technology in the process is quite innovative. It’s something called black soldier fly technology, which they use black soldier flies to break down organic material into animal feed and biofertilizer. It’s a quite advanced technology, which is becoming more and more adopted in some developing countries like Kenya and Rwanda. And we’re introducing it to Nigeria.“In addition, another technology innovation that we’re introducing is the containers that we use to sort. I mentioned that we’re going to be sorting the organic waste separately. The state has smart bins and the green smart bins are for organic waste. We have for food waste and organic waste.And these bins come with RFID tags. And we’re going to introduce IoT devices to tell when they’re full so that they can be scheduled for pickup and transport to the processing plant.”
On businesses and how they are charged, LAWMA boss said businesses in Lagos are charged according to the volume of waste they’re generating, adding that “So, if you are reducing the volume of waste you’re generating by sorting the organic waste and taking it to another facility, that already reduces how much you’re going to pay to the PSP operator. So, that’s an immediate benefit.
“But we are also looking at introducing other incentives as well. Maybe rebates if you sort your food waste for the residential customers. We’re looking and we haven’t concluded on that. But we want to make it attractive to people because as a society, it’s good for all of us. But I think we can, in order for us to make the change take place more rapidly, we will look at introducing incentives.“I mentioned during my presentation that we’re struggling with collection of waste statewide. We’re only able to collect maybe 45 percent safely. So, anything that we can do to reduce the amount that’s ending up in the environment is a welcome development, even for the PSP operators.Commending the sustainable organic waste initiative, Mr Augustine Ogee, Head, Corporate Strategy for Proganics Limited, partner to LAWMA on the initiative, said “Looking at what we’ve done here so far with the data we have at our disposal, we’ve seen that Nigeria as a whole generates tons of organic waste yearly, and there’s an opportunity in that market. Through our R&D efforts, we discovered that we can channel our end products in health, in agriculture, as well as the environment.“That’s one reason why we decided to partner with LOMA, knowing that LAWMA happens to be the biggest waste management agency in the country at the moment. With what they’ve done, the partnerships they have, with the milestone they’ve created when it comes to channeling different types of waste, we decided to partner with them to further make this process easier for us to process and to enjoy the benefits in all these industries as I mentioned earlier.
“ As we know, we are being faced with different issues in Lagos State, issues around sustainability in the environment, greenhouse emissions, the landfills. We know the health impacts people are facing, adverse health impacts people are having because of improper waste management, disposal and management. For sustainability, we know that the more we can be kind to our environment, ensuring that waste is being segregated and the right collectors being used, we know that this is a sustainable solution that is here to stay in the long run.”Stakeholders from Lagos Ministries of the Environment and Water Resources, Agric, Energy and Mineral Resources as well as from hotels, event centre and others commended the initiative.
