Government plans 57 collection centres to reduce plastic pollution

Adebola Shabi, Special Adviser to the Governor on Cleaner Lagos Initiative, made this known during a news briefing on Friday in Lagos.

Shabi said that the plastic collection centres would be established in conjunction with Visionscape Sanitation Solution.

According to him, the scheme will be a form of job creation as youths will be encouraged to bring plastics to the centres in return for stipends.

”The theme of the World Environment Day this year is plastic pollution, and that is one of the biggest menace in the state today.

”So we are going to have 57 collection centres in the state, we are going to encourage youths to bring plastic to the centres and you are given something in return. Then the plastics will be sold to the public for reuse.

”At the end of the day, this initiative is going to help clean up the environment, because we consume a lot of bottled water on daily basis in the state.

”So this will reduce the amount of plastics in our drainages, it will reduce the amount of plastic in our canals and other places,” he said.

The Special Adviser said that government came up with the strategy to ensure that waste was being evacuated from streets and residences.

”We have been engaging different stakeholders, the waste collection operators, the community development committees, the market women, the civil societies, landlords and tenants associations and various NGOs in the state to assess how we have performed in the last one year.

”There are still ongoing discussions with the waste collection operators, the former PSP operators and the state government, in conjunction with Visionscape to have as many Transfer Loading Stations, to ease the disposal of waste in the state.

”Olusosun dumpsite has been shut down by his excellency because of the safety of the people working there and public health.

”And we have been asking the trucks to be going down to Ewe Elepe and Epe and we are looking at the distance, as most of the waste collectors’ trucks cannot go far distance.

”So, that is why we have resolved to have more transfer loading stations within the state and at night, Visionscape will evacuate all the waste from the stations to the Engineered Sanitary Landfill sites,” Shabi said.

He said that the state generated 20,000 tonnes of waste daily which would be treated and sorted at the transfer loading stations before being taken to the Engineered Sanitary Landfills.

Shabi said that 60 per cent of the segregated waste would end up in the landfills while 40 per cent would be recycled and reused for other purposes.

”In the next few days, all the wastes we have been seeing on our roads will be evacuated.

”In the next few months, Visionscape will take stock of more trucks to enhance performance in waste collection,” he said.

According to him, Visionscape has distributed over eight million garbage bags and over 400,000 garbage bins in the last two months.

”What we want from people living in Lagos is to generate your waste, bag your waste and drop them in front of the houses, for effective cleaning and preventive blockage of our drainages and canals.

”The garbage bags and bins are meant for the waste generated, so please ensure that the wastes are being packaged and kept at the front of the houses,” he said.