You have been at the helm of affairs at LAWMA for years to ensure Lagos is kept clean day and night. How has it been so far?
Ans: It’s been very eventful so to say. LAWMA is an autonomous Agency of government, charged with responsibility of collecting, transporting and disposing solid waste in Lagos State under Law No.5, Gazette No.27, Vol. 40 of 13th April, 2007. It’s been a story of ups and down and through the thick and thin. We’ve been able to keep up the place to match the expectation of the people of Lagos and the state government. We’ve been able to keep the pace as I told you and we started in 2003. LAWMA came into the picture of the reform between 2005 and 2013 which we would have said was a decade of major reform at LAWMA where we have the basic re-engineering of the organisation and what the organisation stands for. We did a lot of work we are supposed to do in the last ten years pulling the resources together; the man resource and financial. We put everything together and the result is what people see on the street of Lagos. In January 2014, we started another decade of going higher direction as far as waste management is concerned on the street of Lagos.
The waste recycling to electricity project has been made mention by LAWMA as one key project by the agency. But, little is heard about the project these days. What level are you as regards this project?
The waste to energy programme is on-going and we have been able to make appreciable progress. The project is divided into three major components. The first component is Energy conversion using the bio-digester…… a process of Methane generation which we have done successfully well using the bio-reactor that we install at Ikosi Market at Ketu area. We use the wastes from the market to generate electricity. This is completed and it is up and running as I am speaking with you now.
The second phase is using natural bio-degradation of land fuel through the land fuel gas production. That is mainly the Olusosun land fuel gas. We have done the first halve of that project. The second halve will be installation of scrubbers and turbines to bring out electricity from the wastes. We are on top of making this a reality but it is capital intensive. We’re working on it and very soon, we would round-up on that.
The third part is the thermal conversion of the wastes to electricity through gas or through mass burning. Doing this, we will drive the boilers that will drive our turbines. That one is on-going too. Discussion is on-going on it. We’re even discussing possibility of using the old Energy generation plant at Ijora with the new owner. With this, we would be producing what is called Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF). The focus is to drive the turbines back to their old era. So, it’s on-going. We have not lost focus in these areas.
What’s the difference between all these recycling component and Mobile recycling method introduced by LAWMA?
The mobile recycling programme is meant to collect and sort out waste materials for onward transfer to our recycling centres scattered across the state. The waste paper will go to paper recycling centre, waste plastic will be taken to plastic centre, bottles to the bottle recycling centre. We have standby vehicles at the six regions where we have the mobile centres to collect sorted material for delivery at recycling station.
LAWMA purchased 100 TATA mini-skip trucks and employed women to drive them. What calls for this initiative?
Ans: The initiative is centred around the attainment of our Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). In LAWMA, we believe in optimising the best practice in our services. We focused on the attainment of the MDG’s and the critical component of the MDG’s. I think it is about gender equality and we, in our own little way, we believe that we can give the women opportunities to develop. We should not allow them to play back role every time. When the idea was muted, some people said our women can not do the work. But I insisted they should be given a chance to prove themselves. If we did not give them the opportunity, we can not just say they can’t do the work. So, at LAWMA, we created conducive environment for our women. The idea created job for some people. For instance, Some of the women drivers that drive the mini-truck usually bring their babies to work. They leave their babies with nurses and doctors that we employed for this purpose. Those women leave their babies with the nurses and doctors everyday to drive the wastes truck. The important thing is that one doesn’t need muscle to drive vehicle but brain. If a woman can fly aeroplane or drive train or the high capacity buses that transport large number of people, what stops our women to drive refuse truck effectively? Surprising aspect of this initiative is that we discovered that these women refuse mini-truck drivers have low accident rate compare with their male counterparts. They have been doing their job diligently collecting wastes from door-to-door, narrow roads to narrow roads and inaccessible areas.
How many of these women that drive wastes truck have you employed so far?
We have a little over 40 of them for now.
Can you tell us how LAWMA disposes of medical wastes that appeared more hazardous than ordinary wastes?
Well, we have various kinds of hazardous wastes. We have Industrial wastes, Medical wastes, Cosmetic wastes and Laboratory wastes. Most of these are hazardous waste. However, the most prominent one among them all is the Medical Waste. LAWMA renders medical waste collection and management services to government-state, local-and private healthcare facilities. To prevent environmental hazard, healthcare hazard, healthcare waste is treated with hydroclave/shredding equipment in order to ensure hygienic disposal. Our equipment is one of the best in the Africa continent and, I think the first one in the West Africa sub-region. It was a modern one situated at Oshodi where we disposes the medical wastes.
Tell us about the tyre -shredding programme. What is it about?
Oh yes! It is part of the stream of recycling programme at LAWMA. Tyre shredding is one key area of our recycling programme.
What is the significance of Road and Street sweeping in Lagos state and how many sweeper do you employ so far?
Sweepers play a significant role in keeping the environment clean in Lagos. The programme is about sanitation services; public sanitation in particular. The sweepers are saddled with the responsibility of keeping major highways in Lagos clean, tidy and liveable. They really add value to what we do. Also we have the Street sweepers too. Street sweeping is Poverty Eradication Programme on its own. Those women that you see sweeping highways are not just sweeping, collect their wage and go. They have access to loan facilities because virtually all of them have a shop where they sell various things. Majority of them are traders who sweep in the morning and operate their shops later in the day. Actually they work six hours each day from early in the morning when some people are still sleeping. So, the work is to give them a lead way to have access to loan because they have structured repayment arrangement. That is major significance. Second, street sweeping itself also signifies the government in action and brings about dignity in labour. There is no way you will get to our major highways without seeing these women doing the sweeping. That is not all, it may interest you that some students do their sweeping of streets or highways overnight. We have designated areas that we sweep overnight, we have areas that we sweep in the afternoon and we have areas that we sweep early in the morning. People may not know about this but that is what takes place everyday for Lagos and its environment to be cleaner, day and night. In other words, some people combine schooling and work together. With this idea, so many students are able to pay their school fees and take care of other needs. The idea also enables those who don’t want to be lazy, particularly the women, to have access to work and loan facility to improve their living. We have 17,000 of such women on the payroll.
We still observe that there are illegal dump sites in Lagos metropolis. I want to know why Lagosians still see unauthorised dump sites in the city?
We don’t have illegal dump site or dump sites as you claimed. We care about our host communities; hence our commitment to running healthy disposal sites continues to grow. Our disposal sites are fortified with atomizer for odour control purposes, while the environment is kept clean all times. Regular tests are carried out on the land, air and water around our disposal sites, while all standard procedures regarding the establishment and running of landfill sites are strictly adhered to. Presently we have just four dump sites that the state government approved – The Olusosun dumpsite at Ojota, Soulous dumpsite at Alimosho area, Ewu-Elepe dumpsite outside Ikorodu and the dump site in Epe. Those are the four accredited by the government. We have closed down the dump site at Abule-Egba area.
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