The Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) has reaffirmed its collaboration with the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources and other stakeholders to achieve a cleaner Lagos.
Its Acting Managing Director, Mr Ibrahim Odumboni, made the disclosure at a media parley in Lagos on Thursday.
Odumboni said the authority had been having continuous dialogue with the Private Sector Participation (PSP) to enable them to achieve the minimum standards.
According to him, they are engaging the PSP on capacity building programmes on agreeable minimum standards before informing Lagos residents.
He said that Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu had been working toward empowering PSP to ensure that there was sustainability in environmental management to avoid pandemic in the future.
“We are repositioning the Blue Box Initiative of Gov. Sanwo-Olu’s administration to have an in-depth spread of sorting waste from the source before getting to the recyclers.
“At the moment, we have 20 registered recyclers in 57 Local Governments and Local Council Development Areas (LGDAs).
“Presently, PSP operation is known in 11 LCDAs, and to cover all the local governments, the authority has decentralised its operation into Central, East and West to move closer to people in the community.
“Before the end of August, we should be able to have recycling presence, at least two each, in all the 57 LCDAs,” Odumboni said.
While urging residents to sort their wastes from homes, he pleaded with local government chairmen to create space for recyclable wastes in their communities to enable recyclers to pick them up for usage.
Odumboni said the authority would improve on its mandate to ensure cleaner environment as from 6.00a.m, adding that anyone who noticed any infraction, should contact the Customers Service on 0805990660 and 07080601020.
He said LAWMA would participate more in ensuring that regulation of PSP were done,.
The acting managing director said that the authority would partner with Kick Against Indiscipline, Health Sanitation and others to sanction environmental offenders.
Odumboni appealed to residents to stop patronising cart pushers and endeavour to pay their bills to sustain the operation of PSP.
He commended the state government for providing excellent rehabilitation of the three dump sites.
Odumboni said that the land field had improved from 11 to 20, and increased the turnaround time of truck.
According to him, a total of 500 trips are made daily by the PSP, while the authority is working toward increasing the trips to 850.
He said that the authority would also engage farmers and medical facilities to ensure they complied with the separation of their wastes to avoid epidemic outbreak. (NAN)
