Lagos to Process About 6500tons Organic Waste Generated Daily to Cut Methane Emission

Bennett Oghifo

The Lagos State Government has presented a grand plan to process about 6,500 tons of organic waste generated in the state daily to cut the emission of methane, a contributor to global warming.

The Managing Director of Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), Mr. Muyiwa Gbadegeshin, announced the launch of the project, which is being done in collaboration with Proganics Limited, during a of stakeholders, recently.

The stakeholders included; hospitality companies, eateries, event centers, hotels, and manufacturers of food and beverages, among others.

The LAWMA Chief Executive said, “Sorting of organic waste is very critical for us to achieve the clean Lagos of our dreams. This is because 50% of our waste in Lagos is organic, and that means we have about 6,500 tons of organic waste daily. And if we continue to take this organic waste straight to the landfill, what happens is that we will continue generating large quantities of greenhouse gas, specifically methane, which is a major contributor to global warming, to climate change, this is something we need to stop as a matter of urgency.” Gbadegesin said, “Waste, in general, contributes about 20% to the increase in global temperatures that we’re all experiencing. So that’s why the policy of the administration is to lower this organic waste. That’s lowering methane. Mr. Governor, made a commitment to this at COP 28 in Dubai. What we’re doing here is to put that into action by inviting stakeholders, facilities like hospitality, eateries, event centers, hotels and also manufacturers of food and beverages, who are some of the major generators of organic waste, and we’re enlisting them in collection of this organic waste, separate collection sorted. They are going to be sorting it separately, and then we’re going to take that to an organic waste processing facility.” He said, “Proganics has established a processing plant that can take about 200 tons of organic waste daily. So, it’s a small plant, but it’s something that will provide a good alternative treatment source for organic waste from the hospitality sector.

“The technology is quite innovative. It’s something called black soldier fly technology. Black soldier flies organic material into animal feed. It’s quite an advanced technology which is becoming more and more adopted in some developing countries like Kenya and Rwanda, and we’re introducing it to Nigeria.” He said in addition another technology would be introduced and this is the containers that will be used to sort the organic waste. “I mentioned that we’re going to be sorting the organic waste separately. So the state has smart bins. And the green smart bins are for organic waste, for food waste and organic waste. And these bins come with RFID tags. And we’re going to introduce IoT devices to tell when they’re full, so that they can be scheduled for pickup and transported to the processing plant.”

On payment for this service, he said, “One of the immediate incentives, especially for businesses, is that they are being charged according to the volume of waste they’re generating. So, if you are reducing the volume of waste you’re generating by sorting the organic waste and taking it to another facility, then that already reduces how much you’re going to pay to the PSP operator; so that’s an immediate benefit. But we are also looking at introducing other incentives as well, maybe rebates if you sort your food waste. For the residential customers we’re looking and we haven’t concluded on that, but we want to make it attractive to people, because as a society, it’s good for all of us.”

The Head Corporate Strategy For Progranics Limited, Ogee Augustine,

who described the company as a Research and Development Center, said they have been operating for about seven to eight years, and “we have taken our time to go through the opportunities we have with waste management in Lagos State, looking at what we’ve done here so far, with the data we have at our disposal, we’ve seen that Nigeria as a whole, generates tons of organic waste yearly, and there’s an opportunity in that market. Through Our R and D effort we’ve discovered that we can channel our end products in health, in agriculture, as well as the environment. That’s the more reason why we started to partner with LAWMA, knowing that LAWMA happens to be the biggest waste management agency in the country at the moment, with what they’ve done, the partnerships they have with the milestone they’ve created when it comes to channeling different types of waste, mesmerises one. We decided to partner with them to further make these things easier for us to process and to enjoy the benefits in all these industries.”