27th December, 2012
The Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) evacuates 10,000 tonnes of refuse daily, the Managing Director, said on Wednesday.
The Managing Director of the Authority, Mr. Ola Oresanya made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
He said that given the cosmopolitan nature of Lagos State, it was expected that large volumes of waste would be generated by the people regularly. Oresanya identified indiscriminate dumping of refuse as a major challenge to the agency.
“In Lagos, we generate daily average of about 10,000 metric tonnes. And you know what 1,000 tonnes looks like; 1,000 tonnes will fill 100 trailers.
“The core challenge here is just the habit of the people .Lagosians still have this bad habit of throwing wastes from their cars and dumping wastes in unauthorised places.
“Though the habit is reducing, it’s still a major one and we are addressing it,’’ he said.
On the policy of commercial drivers having waste bins in their vehicles, Oresanya said the idea had not really improved the hygiene of Lagos.
“To me, I don’t see any relevance with that. If you have a waste bin in the bus and I am sitting at the back, do I want to throw waste over the head of other passengers into the bin?
“What we tell the transport workers is to make sure that when they get to their garage, they sweep their vehicles and we have bins in garages where they can dump these things. And if you have a car, you can put the wastes in your carpet and once you get to where you are going, you clean it up,’’ he said.
Oresanya said LAWMA planned to roll out 30,000 new roller bins to further enhance evacuation of wastes in the state, adding that the bins would be given to residents, who pay the land use charges.
“Residents, who already have the bins will not be considered because this is a revolving system. As people pay the land use charge, they get one waste bin free and the charge is ploughed back to buy more bins for distribution to other areas,’’ he said.
He said the ban on cart pushers collecting waste from residents for a fee was still in force but that their activities could not be eradicated totally in some areas.
Oresanya said the agency was making efforts to see that more Private Sector Participation (PSP) operators were licensed to service more locations.
He said the PSPs were agitating for the review of charges but that the authority was looking into the request.
NAN reports that currently PSP operators charge N500 per flat and N200 per shop monthly for waste collection.