Odumboni: Waste Management a Collective Responsibility
Managing Director, Lagos State, Waste Management Agency, Ibrahim Odumboni, gives insight on how the agency is addressing the state’s waste disposal demands by working with key stakeholders such as PSPs. Ugo Aliogo presents the excerpts:
The management of waste in Lagos state is still a big issue. We are still at agrarian level of generation without effective sorting and open dumping instead of recycling and wealth to wealth/energy generation, why?
The process of waste management (generation, collection and disposal) varies from city to city and it involves a significant financial and human capital investment coupled with demands for advocacy and awareness with residents. The current Lagos State Government administration led by Governor Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, with the support of Ministry of Environment and Water Resources led by the Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Mr. Tunji Bello, are intone with this and currently leading the way in Nigeria. In relation to recycling, Lagos State has started recycling officially since the inception of the current administration and over the last six months have scaled up big with revamp of the Blue box initiative to Lagos Recycles, the introduction of technology through PAKAM app, provision of incentive scheme, collaboration with corporate organisations for production and distribution of recycling bins to airports, schools, hospitals and other public places, inauguration of Lagos Recyclers Association, capacity building for our certified recyclers and engagement with Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance, United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), World Bank to mention a few. The ultimate goal is to divert 20 per cent of our waste collected which are recyclables from our disposal site. On disposal of waste and waste to energy initiative, it’s known that there are various approaches to it which includes open dumping, landfilling, sanitary landfill for gasification and incineration system for energy generation plus others. In Lagos, at the moment, we have the landfills system, and in the last nine months, we have expedited efforts to ensure that we move away from that as quickly as possible due to its long-term environmental impact whilst we mitigate that. As we look at the vision of Lagos up to 2030, we need to come up with effective ways of managing our waste disposal in Lagos because the city is surrounded by water and limited in landmass availability. It is important that we have the right choices made rather doing something that is not sustainable. We are discussing with various environmentally centric organisations to give us options to explore. We have also sent our team of experts in-house to different countries and seminars to examine the available waste management models in those countries. We can benchmark our city with countries such as Singapore, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Belgium, Netherlands and Venezuela in terms of topography, population and other environmental challenges. We want to achieve something that is more sustainable for Lagos State and Lagosians. It is our goal to ensure that any initiative we embark on is at an affordable cost for the state and residents as well.
What is the mandate given to you by the Lagos state Governor regarding waste management and how much progress have you made to deliver on that?
My responsibilities and mandates given are as spelt out in the Lagos State Environmental Protection and Management Law 2017. It stipulates that myself and my team are saddled with the responsibility to ensure a consistently cleaner Lagos is achieved in an environmentally sustainable way and ensure this is also done with greater consideration given to human health demand. This is also well emphasised under the current administration’s THEMES agenda with the first letter E standing for Environment and Health. Moreover, solid waste management is a collective human responsibility not just the agency as the part we all play determines the benefits to us all and I’m just leading from the front as the responsibility champion. In doing this, we
collaborate with other agencies within the state, other key stakeholders in the private sector and align with the policies and agendas of our parent ministry. The commitment to effectively manage our solid waste is a daily effort in a proactive manner, therefore all hands has to be on deck to ensure that progress is made on the over 14,000 metric tonnes of waste generated daily. When you compare solid waste management collection waste when Visionscape was handling the waste management of the state to what we have now you will begin to see the magnitude of the progress the Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu administration have made over the last almost two years now. Visionscape had a target of 2000 metric tonnes daily averaging over 150 trips compared to the over 800 trips we have completed daily currently. We also have the state mandate of the state to ensure effective and sustainable solid waste management plan is put in place for the future. In terms of deliverables so far, we have made significant progress in the initiation of recycling/ separation of waste from source, launch of LAWMA Academy for promotion of waste education and awareness across all ages, reforming of our PSPs for service optimisation and sustainable capacity building. On disposal we have had a fully rehabilitated landfill and have proactively commence the research for our future needs as we cannot continue with the current conventional approach. I am extremely confident that this administration is on the right course to deliver the first revolution way for waste management in Lagos. As part of our plan for effective solid waste disposal management, we created our own blueprint which led to the inauguration of our Waste Management Unit (WMU). This unit is saddled with the responsibility of carrying out research and development activities to ensure sustainability in relation to solid waste disposal. They research on what we have currently and what will do in the future, they travel to various countries to understudy latest developments efforts in waste management 1and examine what various global stakeholders are saying.
What are the key growth initiatives that LAWMA under your watch has launched and what has been the progress?
One of the key growth initiatives we have implemented under my watch is the repositioning of LAWMA which was championed by the state governor. The focus has been how to better position LAWMA while considering the future ahead. So, we decentralised our operations to ensure that we are present in all Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in Lagos metropolis and be more proactive rather than reactive. The second growth initiative is PSP reform. We have reformed our PSP, organised capacity building for them and given them minimum standards to ensure deliverables. LAWMA is more regulatory rather than participatory now, and by doing this we have been able to achieve more productivity in terms of trips to landfill and turnaround time for operations. More importantly, the Governor helped us to address our disposal challenges with extensive rehabilitation of all our landfills for long-term gain. The third is the foundation of LAWMA academy, the first citadel of learning for solid waste management in Africa and Sub-Saharan Asia. The academy is aimed at bridging the gap between practical, academic and theories and eradication of myths whilst creating a conducive learning environment for solid waste management. It’s also tasked with carrying out research, awareness creation, advocacy and education. We recently partnered with Lagos State State Universal Basic Education Board, (LASUBEB) to train primary school teachers across the state on solid waste management. The aim is for them to include waste management in their curriculum. The training will help primary school pupils to understand what it takes to manage waste and implementing effective waste management strategies as a culture. So we are trying to catch these primary school pupils young basically, and encourage them to imbibe good waste disposal culture in them. The hope is that when they are grown, they will become change agents with their teachers, and correct the wrong narratives of ineffective solid waste management and other environmental challenges.
Another fantastic initiative we have recorded success is the Lagos Recycle programme which supports of separation from source and recycling plans. We have really gone big on recycling with the support of Mr. Governor and have the key aim to ensure that 20 percent of what we take to landfill is duly intercepted. The progress made on recycling will help ensure consistent supply of raw materials for upcycling manufacturing companies, creation of over 6,000 informal jobs and reduction of environmental impact. For instance, it takes a long time for singled used plastic to decay, so we cannot continue with the conventional approach as these plastics will outlive all of us. So the best thing to do is to take a position around it and you can see a lot of private organisations have joined to support our efforts. We have partners like Heritage Bank, Tangerine life, Rotary clubs, Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), and others. Stakeholders are getting involved to help move the circular economy supported by recycling and waste to wealth forward. Those are some of the things we are have done apart from welfare package for LAWMA staff, sweepers, capacity building for our staffs and engagement with local communities for effective solid waste management. We are also very proud of our engineering team as they are one of the strongest any agency could desire in Nigeria. In terms of productivity, our engineering team have the best Hydraulic engineers and we manufacture our own bins from scratch.
Did you retain the old stakeholders that were used under former Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration or you on-boarded new ones?
Before the end of the previous administration, the major stakeholders (PSPs and Co) were asked to return back to work immediately as the state needed them. Initially, there were capacity challenges but one of the first thing Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu did on assumption of office was to do a capacity review for them to be able to know the extent of their capability deficit and how government can help them to bring Lagos back to the clean site it was before. Subsequently with the provision of a conducive environment and capacity building support we have been able to grow the number beyond what it was before. About 87 new PSP operators have joined the sector since the aftermath of Visionscape with minimum of two active trucks despite #EndSARs, COVID-19 pandemic and economic recession. The sector continues to prosper under the administration of Mr. Governor.
What is the plan for Olusosun dumpsite, and did you adopt the landfill built by Visionscape?
The future goal for Olusosun is to decommission the site and start using it for waste to energy plant where the waste in there can be converted to energy by proponents that have shown interests. Due to recent urbanisation challenges at Olusosun, a latest technology waste management plan is required for the site. The essence of decommissioning the dumpsite is to limit the impacts of the landfill to people living around there. For the dumpsite that Visionscape initiated at Epe, we have adopted that, and we are managing it. It is quite similar to the landfill approach we have at Olusosun. But what we are doing is that we are collaborating with the waste management development team to carry out environmental impact analysis, measures to put in place a sanitary landfill or incineration plant so that we can initiate contemporary solid waste management plan. The aim for us is to ensure that we built something that is environmentally friendly and state-of-the-art technology rather landfilling. For the likes of Olusosun the pre-decommissioning process have started with capping of the sites with laterites in progress, so when it rains, it goes green on it and it will start degenerating and we start recovering the place ready for close so that we can move on.
How much efforts have you put in place in driving environmental sustainability?
Environmental sustainability is very vast, it doesn’t mean living without luxuries, but being aware of your resource consumption and reducing unnecessary waste. Social satisfaction, efficiency improvement and innovation are the key drivers to achieve sustainability. In LAWMA we have sustainability experts in the house, hence we do business across all our programs (from waste collection to disposal, the PSP program, the landfills operations and others) ensuring that our entire operations are based on ensuring that we adhered to the environmental sustainable goals.