Lagos targets women, children in waste recycling

To ensure sustenance of its waste management efforts, the Lagos State government has targeted women and children in its new drive aimed at tackling refuse menace. The new drive, the governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said involved sorting of waste right at the point of generation.

The governor, who noted the challenges poised by the old fashioned style of dumping all the waste in just a container for eventual evacuation to the Transfer Loading Stations and/or Landfill site, stressed that the new drive, named Lagos Blue box programme is targeted to half the volume of generated waste by July 2021.

According to him, with available data indicating that the state waste generation is over 10,000 metric tons daily and 50 per cent of these are reusable, there is the need to encourage another process to minimize waste and generate income for citizens, especially women and children.

The new initiative, the governor said, will also address the noticeable lapses seen in the process of harvesting the reusable components of the waste current done by scavengers.

He urged the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), the regulator, to ensure that all relevant stakeholders like council chairmen, community leaders and market women are carried along to ensure the success of the initiative.

Earlier, the Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Mr. Tunji Bello, said the dearth of sufficient land space has affected the state waste management strategy as they are unable to get adequate space for land fill activities to accommodate the huge waste generated on a daily basis.

According to him, this challenge and the fact that the state is on high water table, which further limits room for maneuvering, necessitated the urge to rethink the strategy in waste management and one of which is waste sorting.

The ultimate aim, the commissioner said is to attain waste conversion and waste buyback and in the process turning waste into resources, thereby minimizing waste and eventually reducing drastically what is left to be transported to the landfills.