Heaps of refuse all over Lagos as Visionscape falters

In the last couple of months, Lagos, Nigeria’s economic nerve centre, has been overtaken by refuse, no thanks to the Lagos State Government’s attempt at transiting from the Public-Private Partnership mechanism to a new initiative of waste management to be driven solely by a consortium under its Clean Lagos Initiative programme.
The state had last year embarked on the review of its waste management scheme under its new scheme and commissioned a consortium of waste manager, led by Visionscape, an environmental utility group. The group was expected to deploy technology, better funding, and germane solutions to execute the initiative.
The government believed that its previous scheme on waste management was not producing the maximum effect and as such, decided to deploy more scientific means to recover and recycle waste into raw materials for use in producing other products.
However, the disengagement of the previous operators under the Private Sector Participation and the rancour that follows the transition to Visionscape has frustrated the new initiative, making it difficult for smooth and efficient take-off of the new scheme as envisaged by the government.
Refuse has taken over major roads, highways and inner streets in the state, threatening epidemic across the state. Concerns over a probable outbreak of cholera and other diseases in the state as a result of the improper disposal of waste in the last couple of months have grown among the populace.
One of the critical challenges facing the new operators of waste management in the state is lack of adequate manpower to help prosecute the projects. Visionscape was just in the process of employing workers to help manage the scheme, while most of its procured vehicles had yet to be put in use due to inadequate personnel to handle the machinery.
Although the state projected that its contract with the new firm would last 10 years in the first instance with the capacity to generate 27,000 direct employment and lead to improvement in waste management in the state, the consortium has yet to employ enough manpower to implement the waste management scheme in the state.

Many of the dumpsites in the state have become inadequate to accommodate the enormous waste being generated in the state and this has slowed down the turnaround time for the vehicles transporting refuse from collection points to disposal centres.
Over the years, the state government has failed to invest enough resources in waste management and refuse recycle to promote a healthy living environment.
According to statistics, the state currently generates around 13,000 metric tons of waste daily. Last year, the state also raised about N27bn in its first green bond with a five-year tenor at 17.5 percent coupon in its quest to improve on waste management in the state. It intends to raise an additional N23bn subsequently to support the CLI scheme.
Insiders say unless the state moves to create new dumpsites to accelerate the process of collection and disposal of waste, the challenges of waste management in the megacity will persist.
Private sector operators should be promoted to handle the recycling aspect of the waste management while massive education of the populace should be embarked upon by the state government to protect the environment from indiscriminate disposal of waste.
The current dumpsites could be converted to recycle centres for interested investors with attractive incentives by the government to ease the pressure on the dumpsites and reduce health implications of the congestion in the sites.
The government could also convert part of the waste into biomass materials to produce electricity for some parts of the state. Through technology, the waste dumpsite could be converted to revenue generation centre for the state by turning the place into massive recycling hub to produce raw materials for other purposes and uses.
The government should also consider the health implications of the current situation of waste mountains across the state and ensure that it improves on collection and disposal efforts.
Some of the dumpsites should be well-treated with relevant chemicals to prevent pollution of underwater so as to avert an epidemic in the state.
The government with the help of international financial institutions could establish incinerators in some parts of the state to help reduce the volume of waste and the challenges of finding suitable dumpsites for the disposal of waste.