Kunle Adelabu
-Call for waste to wealth initiative
Within hours of his appointment as the Spuervisor for Environment and Waste Management in Igbogbo/Baiyeku Local Councii Development Area, (LCDA), Mr Dauda Oshinlaja has been urged by residents to ensure a cleaner environment.
He was charged on the need to develop quickly a blueprint on how he wants to tackle the issue of waste and environmental problems which have been been recurring challenges across the state.
Oshinlaja on Monday was along with others inaugurated as cabinet members by the Executive Chairman, IBLCDA, Omo’ba Hammed Aroyewun.
Mr Dayo Osore, social critic and public commentator gave the charge while congratulating the appointee who was returning to the IBLCDA cabinet for the second term.
”Super for Environment and Waste Management, Hon. Dauda Oshinlaja, I hope Igbogbo LCDA will be as clean as Kigali.
”Please, indiscriminate dumping of refuse should be treated with utmost seriousness. Also, I await to see your programmes on waste management, bearing in mind that there is a link between waste and wealth. Congratulations,” Osore gave the charge.
While calling for responsible local council administration in terms of waste management, Osore called on the government to direct every household to have at least a single waste bin for storage of waste and easy evacuation.
”For an effective waste collection, transfers and recycling, every local government must have waste management systems in place. In fact, waste management should be an exclusive responsibility of a local government/LCDA.
”Every household and industry must have waste bins for waste collection and storage at the point of generation, putting into consideration that wastes recycling starts from the point of generation.”
He also called for recycling of waste by the council.
” I hope the Supervisor for waste management and environment will do something great about wastes which are being generated within the LCDA.
”If the wastes are not being recycled or processed after disposing of them, even the whole of Igbogbo/ Baiyeku may not be enough as a dumpsite…, ” he said.
Another public commentator, Oluwa_Diaspora also commenting called on council authorities to develop their waste disposal units and put in place effective waste removal from homes to the dumping site if the environmental challenges are to be tackled effectively.
”Mid last month, I saw what Olusosun looked like on my way from Akure. I’ve never seen such a queue on that site before.
“There needs to be alternative to that site but pending the availability of an alternative, every LCDA should have an official waste disposal unit or have trucks move to streets to collect and move waste, otherwise, people will keep dumping refuse indiscriminately.
”We need to find a better way because it’s becoming a very big mess.”
Mr Babatunde Afuwape, a chieftain of Igbogbo Development Association (IDEA) in his own contributions said that the only way to reverse the ugly sight at Olusosun is for the state government to develop initiative to convert waste into other use able products like in other countries.
”The situation in Olusosun ought to have been a thing of the past if waste-to-wealth initiative has been embraced and pursued aggressively.
”Some advanced countries are converting the wastes they generate into valuable resources like heat, electricity, organic fertilisers, fuel (biodiesel, biogas) etc. Why is that difficult to do here?”, he asked
”We can learn from them and get experts from countries like Sweden, Norway, Japan etc that have carried out this initiative successfully,” he said.
