Rising refuse heaps in Ibadan will disappear this week — WestAfricaERNG

Chief Operating Officer, WestAfricaENRG Lolade Oresanwo has assured of improvement in the waste collection this week, adding that about 50 more waste collectors will be engaged in the coming weeks to improve the situation.

Oresanwo disclosed this while speaking to Ecoscope on heaps of refuse that litter medians and streets of Ibadan, the Oyo state capital.

Residents of West Africa’s largest city by land mass have expressed concern over the filth that has littered the city in recent time.

Areas which residents have expressed concern include Apata, Moor Plantation, BCJ, Oke Ado, Molete, Idi Arere through to Gate.

This has called to question the ability of the main waste contractor, WestAfricaENRG to effectively manage waste.

Oresanwo noted that recent daily rainfall had gravely affected collection of waste.

While noting that the four dumpsites in Ibadan have become inadequate, she added that intermittent rainfall has also worsened access routes to the two out of four dumpsites that collect most waste from the PSPs.

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Constant breakdown of vehicles that collect waste resulting from rain damaging vehicle parts was also identified as a problem. She added that there were some waste collectors sabotaging efforts by collecting refuse and dumping them on medians, roadsides and streets.

While bemoaning the failure of some areas of Ibadan to patronise accredited waste collectors believing that it was government’s duty to pick their waste, Oresanwo assured that the situation is bound to improve this week with 50 more waste collectors set to be engaged.

“The culture of indiscriminate dumping of refuse has to change for things to get better. The truth is that people know it is wrong but just don’t want to pay. Every time people are arrested and spoken to, but they believe that since government is clearing their waste, and they should continue.

“In the last 10 days, it has been burdensome because of the awareness of flooding. There has been rain non-stop for 15 days and this has a far-reaching impact. From June to August, you could barely see waste because they were being cleared immediately and that capacity was still there.

“During the rainy season, because of the terrain of some of the dumpsites, we focus on some over the others. There are four major dumpsites: Apete, Ajakanga, Lapite, and Aba-eku in Akanran.

“During the rains, we focus more on Ajakanga and Awotan, but the access road to get to the dumpsite became a challenge. Notwithstanding, Lapite is available. Today, there is an excavator and a bulldozer working at Lapite to ensure that waste is collected from the PSPs.

“The challenge we also have during the rains is that there is a lot of vehicular breakdown. Though the PSPs may say that they don’t have access to dumpsites, one of the biggest challenges is constant vehicular breakdown during the rain, as the rain damages some of the parts of the vehicles. This is not peculiar to Ibadan.

“Over the next three days, we will go back to status quo when we don’t find waste on the streets of Ibadan any time from 11 am.

“There is no waste management problem that cannot be tackled. There are people that instead of them to go to accredited dumpsites, dump the refuse at indiscriminate places.

“This is why on our expressways you begin to wonder why we still have heaps of refuse after clearing waste. Some individuals offload a waste truck and dump it on the express. It is a behavioral problem when people don’t care for our environment, society and future generation which is what climate change is all about,” Oresanwo said.

Recognising the challenge of inadequate dumpsites, Oyo State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Mr Kehinde Ayoola, said that it planned to decommission its Lapite dumpsite and create  another site.

He added that the state planned to reintroduce receptacles for residents to dispose their waste.

“The four dumpsites that we have are no longer adequate. For example, the one in Lapite in Akinyele Local Government Area will be decommissioned because it is too close to the dry port and the railway terminus that is coming there.

“We have gone to inspect a few sites with the officials of the Ministry of Lands to see where we can relocate this dumpsite to. When we get there, it will be run as a real landfill where there will be decomposting and recycling.

“We will find a way to use up the waste either to recycle the non-biodegradable component of the waste or to compost the degradables into organic fertiliser or organomineral fertiliser.

“We will introduce community based refuse collection system whereby refuse in a particular area, street, ward, district would be taken care of by people in that area so that you won’t be looking for your refuse collector that is 20 kilometres away.

“The contractor is right there in your community living with you. Then, refuse receptacles will be reintroduced. You will discover that in all the streets where you see people putting refuse on the road, there are no bins to collect them.

“We will reintroduce receptacles and ensure that people put refuse inside the bin and not outside,” Ayoola said.

While presenting its report to Governor Seyi Makinde, last week, chairman, Investigative Panel on Waste and Refuse Management in Ibadan, Mrs Ololade Agboola, also decried challenges the state was facing with dumpsites and the existence of some subcontractors who have grievances against the main waste contractor.

“The issue of refuse dumping became an eyesore. It was disgusting to see that all the medians were turned into refuse dumps. We wake up each morning to find huge refuse on the major highways. We had issues with the dumpsites, and how it could be better managed.

“We discovered that there were two sets of sub-contractors. Some were ready to work with the consultant appointed by the state government. Some are aggrieved contractors who could not meet the deadline given when the consultant called for registration, so they formed themselves into a group and making the operations of refuse collection impossible in some areas.

“We realised that for us to have a very clean environment, we need the cooperation of all these stakeholders, whether those making the waste or those managing the waste,” Agboola said.