There are indications that the Lagos State Government, through its waste management office is not joking with its resolve to make residents cough out N84,000 for the purchase of its twin waste bins.
The Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) said its decision is to ensure that the state complies with the modern way of waste disposal and management.
Residents some estates in the state have been discussion the conveyance of the bins in trucks to their estates with accompanying officials of LAWMA telling residents the waste bins are now compulsory.
LAWMA’s Managing Director, Mr. Ibrahim Odumboni said enforcement will begin January 2023.
By that time, all houses in Lagos must have bought two of the bins which cost N42,000 each.
Residents who don’t comply by the time, according to Odumboni, are liable to fines of N50,000 or three months in prison.
Already, NPO Reports gathered that residents of notable estates are being asked to procure the bins while those who refuse to will have the PSP waste collectors not collecting their wastes contained in the usual plastics usually placed in front of residences.
”Circular means it is rotating. So your waste is not a waste unless you decide to waste it,” Olugbenga Adebola, Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria, AWAMA’s Spokesperson, was quoted as saying.
“As from October, PSP operators wont collect your wastes again if they don’t find them in these approved waste bins,” one of the officials of LAWMA told NPO Reports pleading anonymity.
Of the two bins, one is for plastics while the other is for organic waste. Odunmboni said the move is towards having “circular economy” where your waste is regenerated into something useful.
The managing director LAWMA said that the authority had printed out the first batch of 250,000 abatement notices, and from October 1 would issue them to households that do not own bins.
He said that the law stipulated a minimum fine of N50,000 and maximum of three months imprisonment for erring individuals.
”So, we are going to enforce it now. We are going to give them a notice on Oct. 1 and then by Jan. 1, 2023, the three months period has gone, we then start enforcing,” Odumboni said.
According to him, everybody must have a bin, as it is the beginning of the problem and the end of the problem to waste management.
”We have noticed that over a million households don’t have bins at all, and that is the genesis of our problem.
“I want to task everyone of us here, so that by the time we come to our meeting next year, we can report that 90 per cent of the households under each and everyone of us have a bin.
”It is our duty to ensure that we promote bins to them, we have to make sure that all the households under us have a bin, be it that they are going to pay for it as part of their waste bill, be it that they are going to buy now and pay later, be it that they are going to buy their own, it is mandatory for them to have the bins,” he said.
Odumboni urged the waste managers to promote the use of the wheelie bin, as it would help to enhance the efficiency of the job.
“What we are introducing to Lagosians through this circular economy is to ensure that every waste that is generated in Lagos State is segregated, is sorted out into different waste components – plastic, aluminium, paper, organic waste.
”Once that is separated at the doorstep of the waste generators, then it will encourage recycling. It will encourage waste conversion, you can convert your waste into energy, electricity, even through the waste you can generate organic fertilizer.
”Circular means it is rotating. So your waste is not a waste unless you decide to waste it,” Adebola said.
He said that the association was keying into the policy of LAWMA on the two-bin system, of which every household must now have two bins in their frontage.
According to him, one of the bins is colour-coded in blue, the other one is in green, the blue one is expected to collect all the recyclables altogether – plastic, aluminum, paper.
He said that these recyclables are taken to a Material Recovery Facility where they are also sorted out into different waste components for proper recycling and conversion.
Adebola said that the other two-bins of green colour were expected to be used to collect organic waste, which would be transported to another facility, to convert into organic fertilizer or biogas.
The vow to enforce the use of the N84,000 bins come amidst residents who have been accusing the state government of being insensitive to the current economic crisis.
The waste bins and its costs are currently a hot topic of discussions amond residents in Lagos.
NPO Reports gathered that many online fora where residents discussion issues germane to them have taken up LAWMA in its vow and planning to reach out to the agency to seek further clarifications.
“Good morning House.
“I think that the Exco should find out what is being done on this Recycle Bin project at other notable Estates like Magodo, Omole etc.
We pay tenement rate, taxes etc to the state.
“What is the Government giving back to the people in return yet they want our votes to the next election? We can not afford to be fools at all times.
“Is Lawma asking residents of streets and markets where the big trucks buckets where place to pay for it? If the answer to this is NO, then this Recycle Bin should follow the same concept.
“Recycle Bin should be the property of Lawma or the Government who have the responsibility of clean environment and not that of residents,” a resident was quoted as stating in one of the estates in Lagos last week when the LAWMA officials made their ways into the estate to drop bins in front of houses.
Another resident, a broadcaster living in UNILAG Estates, when contacted, said, “They have brought their bins into our estate but people are not taking them. We have our bins and if at all we are going to change that, must it cost this much. Looks like this people don’t even know what they are talking about,” she said.
A retired accountant in a federal government agency while speaking with the NPO Reports, said of the bins, “It doesn’t work like that. In developed clime, bins are bumps in bin bags in front of the houses and picked between 6pm and 8pm on daily basis and no bins are required to be purchased. Lawma fees kept increasing and we kept paying. How do they intend to perform effectively the services we are paying for?
For me, Recycle Bins are TOOLS of Trade for the Waste Disposal Managers and Not the responsibility of the users.”
But a resident in Magodo, who is a television analyst, said the government has good intention coming with the bins. “But one, I will advise to bring down the cost or subsidise it. The times are hard for everyone. The other option is to make residents pay over a much longer period. Don’t forget they just witnessed an increase in LAWMA fee,” he said
