Green consumerism and behavioural change on the part of Nigerians are some of measures that need to be adopted in achieving secularity and, until we entrench these into our waste management systems, we are just scratching the surface.
Dr. Leslie Adogame, the Executive Director of Sustainable Research and Action for Environmental Development (SRADev Nigeria), made this submission at a two-day workshop that held from September 19 to 20, 2024, in Lagos. It was themed: “Advancing Capacity and Strengthening National Advocacy Towards Implementing a Zero Waste Initiative in Plastic Waste Management in Nigeria”.
Dr. Adogame said: “Presently in Nigeria, we consume like there is no tomorrow and we produce recklessly but if we can factor the basic element of waste reduction from source by producing and consuming only what you know you can manage, we are on the right path of achieving zero waste.
“We need to start producing only things we know we can recycle because we don’t have the capacity to invest in sanitary landfill.
“The economy is going down and investing in waste management such as the sanitary landfill is very huge, so invest more in behavioural change that will produce few wastes going to the dump site.”
The Executive Director of SRADev Nigeria went further: “You don’t need rocket science to manage waste. Go to the developed countries right from the doors you have bins where your food waste goes, your recyclable goes into a particular bin, then somebody comes to take it, and that recyclable they aggregated, and somebody else needs that waste, and they are just easily recycled around, and you don’t have waste all over.
“If you can conscientise and imbibe this will be on a path of sustainable waste management, and that is what we are trying to sell to the government, not to begin to look for businesses, MoU that will install an Incinerator that will not work beyond one or two years.
“And yet, billions of dollars would have been wasted on those things don’t work. Even developed countries where they have those facilities, it is a deception for you to say you want to do incineration in Nigeria in the year 2024. Just go simple: zero waste. Organic waste volume in Lagos is huge. Almost 60% of waste in Lagos is huge, and a lot of people can be employable through organic waste conversion.”
In his submission, Weyinmi Okotie, Clean Energy Campaigner, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), admitted that achieving zero plastic waste management is going to be lot of work and a lot is expected from all stakeholders in the industry.
Okotie said: “Plastic waste management is a systematic problem, so we have to look at it together from the holistic point of view, we can achieve zero plastic waste.
“In achieving zero plastic waste, first of all we need to understand the level we are right now, I know we have some data, but first of all, getting to all the data and then realising the scale of what we need to do.
“Lagos State Government should also shelve the idea of building a waste-to-energy incinerator because the moment you have such an incinerator, there will be no need for people to reduce waste, these are some of the factors that can militate against achieving zero plastic waste in Nigeria,” Okotie submitted.
In his remarks, Olugbenga Adebola, National President, Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria (AWAMN), who is assertive about achieving zero plastic waste, opined that
with a whole lot of commitment on the part of way the people, the government, and every practitioner, the government indeed needs to take the lead.
Adebola recalled: “Over 20 years ago, as far back as 2002 me and some other few Nigerians, Lagosians in particular, were sent to Cairo, Egypt to go and understudy the Zero Waste initiative by a foreign organisation. We were sent to America also to understudy them, and we came back to Nigeria with a view to implementing it in Lagos in particular.
“However, we need a lot of political will. The political will is key, and I want to give it to Lagos State. Yes, Lagos State has been in the forefront. Given the political will, other states need to implement the Zero Waste Initiative, or the Zero Waste project would only start from the point of waste generation, where every waste generator must see their waste not as a waste, but as a resource.
“So, it is only when you see your waste as a resource that you now begin to package it in such a way that you do what we call segregation, where you sort your waste into different waste components such as plastic, paper, aluminium and all manners of waste. These are not going to be disposed of, they are expected to be exchanged for a resource. You are expected to get money out of it.
“Right now, I’m happy with where we have taken especially plastic waste to. The plastic right now is a scarce commodity in Nigeria, especially PET bottles. Everybody’s looking for PET bottles because it has attracted a lot of renumeration right now. So, the same thing with paper, the same thing with aluminium, the same thing with scrap metals. So, the only waste that you could say is not being used, is the organic waste.
“Currently, there are projects that are coming up where the organic waste will be converted into organic fertiliser, biogas, and bio ethanol, which they are going to be using to power even some of our trucks and some of our vehicles.
“And of course, the biogas that you are also going to have that we are expected to extract will also serve as a CNG that the federal government is talking about, and that is also, you know, implementing the federal government policy in reducing the reliance of fossil fuel like petrol and diesel and so on and so forth.”
On his part, Mr. Ade Babajide, Director, Lagos State Ministry of the Environment, noted that, in achieving the aims of environmental sustainability, regulators, NGOs and other stakeholders need to collaborate more.
He said that the Lagos State Government has been doing a lot in the area of waste management one of which was the recent ban on styrofoam materials.
“The government banned the use of styrofoam across the state simply because it was constituting nuisance to the environment by blocking the drainages and the waterways leading to floodings, so we had no choice than to take that decision.”
Babajide, who represented the Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment, said: “Even till today and on a daily basis our Enforcement and Monitoring Team do go out to ensure that we rid the state of the menace.
“I can confirm to you that, as we speak, over 85% of styrofoam are gone and we are not relenting in haunting for it to ensure that it does not find its way back to the environment.”
Talking about converting organic waste to manure, Babajide said it that the Federal Ministry of Environment that is saying that synthetic fertiliser is destroying the soul recently approved a billion-dollar factory to be built in Lagos, that could have been encouraged to set up a multi-billion-dollar facility using organic waste to produce organic fertiliser, and the environment would have been better for it.
“I understand the synthetic fertiliser has more yield compared to the organic one, but we need to enlighten and educate our people on the benefit of one over the other. These are the issues we really need to look at and address head-on.”
The seminar organised by SRADev Nigeria under the auspices of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) witnessed participants from Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), Manufacturing Association of Nigeria (MAN), Association of Wastepickers of Lagos (ASWOL), some selected schools and Oko-Ọba Estate GRA Scheme One, with online participants from Nipe Fagio (Tanzania), Adansonia Green (Senegal) Gayo and Local Government Official (Ghana), and End Plastic Pollution and Project Kollekt (Uganda), among others.
By Ajibola Adedoye
