Scavengers, traders, waste collectors groan over Olusosun dumpsite closure, fire

Despite official closure, Olusosun dumpsite is an issue that won’t go away anytime soon. TUNBOSUN OGUNDARE looks at the contentious issues and the contenders.

Today makes it exactly 45 days that Olusosun dumpsite at Ojota\Old Tollgate axis of Lagos city, the nation’s commercial nerve centre, has been shut down by the Lagos State government. But reactions have not stopped pouring in from stakeholders on the closure and these are expectedly diverse

Olusosun dumpsite (100 acres), according to Wikipedia, is the largest in Africa and one of the largest in the world, queuing behind Apex Regional, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States of America (2,200 acres); Bordo Poniente, Mexico City, Mexico (927 acres); Laogang, Shanghai, China (830 acres); Malagrotta, Rome, Italy (680 acres); Puente Hills, Los Angeles, California, United States of America (630 acres), among others.

The site, which was created in 1990 as a landfill for gully erosion and became active two years later, accommodates most of the 13,000 metric tons of waste generated on a daily basis in the state, according to the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), a government agency.

However, while some believe that the waste disposal site ought not to have been closed down, at least for now, for reasons they are convinced about, others, including the government, believe that the closure is not only in order but long overdue.

For example, those licensed by the government to collect wastes from homes and commercial places for fees and dump at Olusosun and other refuse sites across the state, including those of Epe, Badagry, Ikorodu, Igando and Abule-Egaba, are subscribers of the former view, plus individuals who earn their living directly from the dumpsite.

Mr Lekan Owojori is a consultant and spokesperson for the Private Sector Participants (known simply as PSPs). He told Saturday Tribune that it was not as if the group was totally against the closure but it was premature.

According to him, he is aware that Olusosun had a short life span in its former state before being forced to comply with world best practices in public waste management but the ease of doing business should have been factored in by the state government.

“We strongly believe that the world has moved away from dumpsite to conversion of waste to wealth and we equally believe that the dumpsite should be closed, but where we differ is the timing. There wasn’t proper planning towards the closure. The government cannot just wake up one day and make a policy without putting those that will be directly affected into consideration.

“There should have been proper plans guiding all stakeholders towards the closure as it is done in other climes so that in the end, there will be soft landing for all parties,” he said.

Owojori explained that since the closure, private waste collectors had suffered untold hardship. “Members who made use of Olusosun now have to go to Ikorodu, Badagry, Igando or Abule-Egba, which are very far.”

This development, he said, had increased their running costs astronomically. He noted the extra cost of diesel, wear and tear of vehicles, more working hours to get to the far-flung dumpsites and the stress that come with plying Lagos roads, as the additional expense being incurred due to Olososun closure, for which the operators had no planned budget.

“So, there should have been concrete alternative not only in terms of where to dump refuse but also in terms of cost implications before shutting down the site,” he insisted, adding that “what the government should have done is to manage the site more effectively to prevent heath and environmental risks and as well ensure that the law against indiscriminating dump of refuse in the city is enforced.”

He added that before now and the coming of another private firm known as VisionScape, PSPs used to carry about 85 per cent of both domestic and commercial waste generated in Lagos and that the city was not only neater but also healthier.

He was asked whether the customers should be expecting hike in collection bills as a way of passing the financial burden to them and if the garbage that dot the city nowadays could be regarded as a justification of his stance: “With the new changes going on in waste management in the state, most of the waste are not being evacuated again because many people don’t want to pay any longer. They prefer dumping their waste on the road median and other public places where you cannot hold anybody responsible.

“This is because there is no enforcement again. Lagosians generate waste per second. So, what I am driving at is that even though we are not thinking of increasing our bills, it is still an option but not the best option for us and for our teeming customers who are struggling hard to make ends meet because of the harsh economic weather in the land.

“So, let us go back to Olusosun and get more people to pay their bills for serving them and let government also keep the site tidy and healthy.”

Traders, scavengers and motor park touts in the area also spoke almost in unison as the PSP on the matter. They spoke from economy angle, saying they earned their daily bread from their activities around the dumpsite as well as contribute to the Lagos State economy.

They complained that business had been dull for them since the development.

One of them, a middle-aged woman, simply identified as Mama Rashidat, is a soft drink and pure water seller. She told Saturday Tribune that she had not been making much profit since the closure.

According to her, she used to sell four crates of soft drinks and many bags of sachet water, popularly called pure water, to workers in the site, the nearby motor park and offices on a daily basis but she now sold nothing close to that volume.

One striking thing in what she said was that she paid tax regularly to the local government and owo ile to the area boys from her sales.

“The payment is a must and most times with no receipt,” she added, speaking in Yoruba language. “But now, I have to be going around even up to Motorways to make sales.”

Similarly, the commercial inter-state transporters at Ojota, who had been dislodged from their park and now make use of a nearby filling station and every corner to load and discharge their passengers, are also feeling the hit. One of them told Saturday Tribune that they hang around daily standing for hours to some money to take home to feed their families.

The source, who refused to give his name for fear of being driven away from the station, lamented that business had been dull since they were dislodged from the park as many passengers who have had the knowledge of the situation now go to other parks. “I used to go home with N2,000-N3,000 daily but now I hardly make up to N1,000,” he pointed out.

Just like the motor park touts, scavengers, who searched the closed site everyday for recyclables to make a living in spite of the hazards, said they were not finding life easy again.

They said it was not as if they were happy doing what they do but there were no alternative jobs for them and they did not want to resort to stealing or begging to make a living.

The 2014 Second Annual Report by Waste Atlas, a foreign research body, put the figure of scavengers on the site around 1,200.

Musa happens to be one of them, by his own admission. He told Saturday Tribune at Igando dumpsite, which is about 20 kilometres away from Olusosun, during the week that he came around to see if he could be coming to the area to continue with his business.

He said he considered moving over there and not to any other dumpsites because of its nearness to Iyana-Ipaja where he lives and being an area he is familiar with. Musa, from Katsina State and who speaks a bit of pidgin English, said he used to make about N2,500 from the sales of scraps he got from the dumpsite daily. He, however, said sometimes he also bought recyclables and resold at a higher price.

And just like the PSPs, traders and motor park touts, Musa would have preferred that the Olusosun remained functional if his opinion had been sought before the closure was effected in view of his knowledge of the area where, he said, he had been doing business for the past five years.

Sounding as if he was one of those the development directly affected is a professor of environmental engineering, Mr Ife Adewunmi. Although he saw the development in a slightly different perspective, he re-echoed the voice of PSP and others.

Professor Adewunmi, who is a senior lecturer at the Niger Delta University, Wilberforce, Bayelsa State, first blamed the government for not doing the proper things before now on the site.

He told Saturday Tribune that should there even be the need for the closure of dumpsite like that of Olusosun, issue of resettlement should have been perfected.

According to him, collection of waste and taking it to far distances for disposal is a waste of money and that is the practice not only in Nigeria but in Africa as a whole. He added that the developed world no longer talked of waste disposal as no item is considered a waste anymore.

“This is because what ‘A’ calls waste is a raw material for ‘B’ and the chain continues. So, all the metal, plastics, cans, papers and household appliances and chemical items at Olusosun, for example, can be recycled, and the remnants will turn to organic manure or fertilizer for farmers.

“So, the only thing is the collection point for all these and private sector should be seriously encouraged to handle most of the chains while government regulates and provides enabling environment for them to thrive,” he said.

But when he was asked for his expert opinion on what a dumpsite like Olusosun could be used for outside of dumping of refuse, he said it depended on the plans of the government.

“That is what we call land reclaiming. Olusosun had been a gully before being converted to dumpsite just to fill the place originally. But when the refuse became accumulated, it turned to a mountain as it is today. So, the government will need to get to the original soil before building on it so that the structure will be able to stand on solid foundation.

“Even at that, as an engineer, when we look at the site, we don’t normally recommend skyscraper or residential buildings because the structure can fail at any time. But if proper soil investigation is done, you can construct, maybe, one or two-storey building maximum or recreation garden in order to ease evacuation of people and property in case of emergency,” Adewunmi said.

On the financial implications of such project, the don, who is a former chairman of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife chapter, still maintained that such could only be determined by various factors, including the volume, nature of the refuse and the depth, and all these require proper investigations and a lot of money.

But residents, business owners and employees around the area as well as passersby received the closure with open arms.

They said they were tired of frequent thick smokes that usually covered the airspace in the entire community whenever fire erupted from the site and the occasional foul odour that was always emitted from the place. They added that they needed not to be told that the pollution put their health as well as the environment at risk.

Some of them, who spoke to Saturday Tribune, said they could not even imagine why it took the state government so long before closing the site.

Findings showed that landfill sites are normally ugly worldwide. And it is not just the sight of increasing piles of waste that is the problem. There are many negative issues associated with it. The most common human health (public and occupational) issues associated with it, according to health and environmental experts, are diseases related to gastrointestinal, dermatological, respiratory, and genetic systems; and several other types of infectious diseases.

It is also known that the nearby dwelling populations risk of suffering diarrhoea, headache, chest pain, irritation of the skin, nose and eyes; typhoid and stomach ulcer.

People who work in dumpsites such as the waste pickers are also more prone to experience above-mentioned diseases, as well as accidents from cuts and injuries, while fatalities from landslides and trucks can’t be ruled out.

A middle-aged man, who identified himself simply as Johnson and another woman, Mrs Abake Bakare, said they heard of people who have suffered one or more of these health challenges. They accused government of bias, adding that if pollution of this magnitude should happen constantly in places like Shangisa, Ikeja GRA, Victoria Island, Ikoyi and other locations where the rich are living or earning their living, government would have closed it before now as a route to a permanent solution.

On its part, the government said the closure was done in good faith and for the benefit of people of  the city.

Governor Akinwunmi Ambode had said, while shutting down the Olusosun dumpsite following a fire outbreak which has been on for close to three weeks, that the entire wide expanse of land would be converted to a recreational garden and parks, thereby drawing the curtains on Olusosun’s menace.