Plastic Recycling: LAWMA tasks local engineers to fabricate baling machines

Managing Director/CEO of the Lagos Waste Management Authority, (LAWMA), Mr Ibrahim Odumboni, on Thursday tasked innovative engineers in the state and the country at large to design affordable baling machines to make the plastic recycling business more attractive and less capital intensive.

Odumboni threw the challenge in his keynote address at a stakeholders’ consultative forum for plastic recycling value-chain, organised by Giz, a German concern and held at the Sheraton Hotels, Ikeja, even as he frowned at the use of brown-coloured pet bottles for the packaging of plastic drinks, urging such companies to stick to white transparent ones.

The LAWMA boss observed that the baling component of the recycling process was a vital one, saying that locally fabricated machines would go a long way in simplifying the process since they would come cheaper and more easily maintained.

“Baling is an important component of the plastic recycling process. We need our innovative and enterprising engineers to come up with locally designed and manufactured baling machines that would be durable and affordable for our recycling investors.

“It will be easy to maintain them. If we have this, the business of plastic recycling will gradually become less capital intensive and better domesticated. This is my challenge to our local engineers and I know they can do it.

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“Honestly, I do not understand why some manufacturers use brown-coloured pet bottles to package drinks for us to consume. Why? he queried.

“You do not see this in the UK or Dubai for example. What is wrong with using white transparent pet bottles? Please, such drink producers should take a second look at their products,” he said.

Speaking further, Odubomi disclosed that no fewer than 500 bags of fertilizer were daily produced from organic waste at a LAWMA facility in Odogunyan, a suburb of Lagos, adding that several tonnes of briquette from sawdust were also daily produced from another LAWMA facility at Agbowa, also a suburb of Lagos.

The LAWMA boss, therefore, enjoined the stakeholders’ to shun needless competition, urging them to work in synergy and collaboration to tap the huge economic opportunity in the business, even as he noted that there were more than enough floating pet bottles to go round all investors in the value-chain.

He also took a swipe at some NGOs exploiting the process with their cosmetic engagements, describing them as a burden with their sharp and ill-intentioned practices as well as advising them to be truthful, honest and fair in their chosen endeavour.

One of the panelists and Executive Secretary of Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA), Mrs. Agharese Onaghise, noted that the 22-member group had been self-funding in its various interventions for plastic recovery, promising that the group would collaborate more to stabilise the recycling value-chain for fair reward to all stakeholders and investors.

The programme was attended by several prominent facilitators and panelists including, Dr. (Mrs.) Dolapo Fasawe, General Manager, Lagos Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA).