The urban renewal initiative of the Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi has continued apace with the introduction of a waste collection scheme to keep towns and cities clean.
Refuse trucks have been deployed to collect waste from houses, a development that has been hailed as unprecedented in history of the 16-year-old state.
Heaps of garbage which once took over sections of the capital, Ado-Ekiti, have vanished, replaced with an alluring clean ambience.
The containers now serve the residents who previously reduced the major streets and roadsides to dumpsites.
While the practice constituted a major health hazard to the residents themselves over the years, heaps of assorted garbage at various stages of decay, emitted offensive odour, posing a great challenge both to aesthetics and environmental sanity.
Thankfully, the trend has changed both in Ado and Ikere which have been receiving prime attention for reasons of their population, spread and being comparatively major centres of governance, commerce and learning.
Branded compactor trucks have been procured and mobilised to join in evacuating the waste. Other trucks have also joined in removing and replacing the ones in containers placed at road junctions and other designated spots.
According to the chairman, Ekiti State Waste Management Authority, Hon. Adebayo Morakinyo, house-to-house collection started in February mainly in Ado and Ikere to halt the trend of indiscriminate dumping of rubbish by residents.
He explained that the state has engaged three private sector participants (PSPs) for the exercise which he said is being limited to Ado and Ikere for now, adding that additional three PSPs have also been contracted.
Disclosing that five PSPs, rather than six, now operate in the five designated zones in Ado and two in Ikere, the waste management boss stated that one of the three earlier contracted had been derelict in discharging its roles and the contract “has been terminated for gross inefficiency.”
Morakinyo said: “The state has also purchased additional two roll-on-roll-off garbage trucks to strengthen the operations and enable us reach the residents as often as we think is necessary.”
But, what happens to tons of heaps evacuated from streets and homes over time and what precautions are there to ensure collected waste doesn’t constitute another hazard to the people?
Waste taken from various homes, according to the chairman, are disposed of around Fagbohun Estate Ikere-Ekiti and Ilokun area of Ado Ekiti, locations in the capital which are clinically far from human habitation and could therefore not reasonably constitute any form of dange to humans or animals.
But, keeping waste at bay and sanitising the streets have essentially not been the only preoccupation of the Waste Management Authority in the state.
The establishment has equally made efforts to make sense and wealth out of the garbage by converting same into forms in which it could meet other needs of man.
According to Hon Morakinyo, this it does by partnering the National Environmental Standards and Regulation Enforcement Agency (NESREA) which had piloted projects on the conversion of organic (biodegradable) wastes to fertilizer and the inorganic ones to other useful forms in the state.
Applauding the gesture of the federal government at the commissioning of the NESREA demonstration waste control composting plant, State Governor Kayode Fayemi noted the effort would support infrastructure development drives in the state as shown in the administration’s 8 Point Agenda.
Governor proceeded to commend the Honourable Minister on the integrated waste recycling project the Federal Ministry embarked upon at Fagbohun Estate, Ikere-Ekiti, disclosing that Ekiti has supported the project by making landspace available at Erifun and Ilokun sites and diverting enough waste deposits to the sites for sufficient supplementary organic waste for the compost recycling plant.
The Governor then assured that the state would make judicious use of the plants once handed over to it, adding that efforts would equally be geared at replicating the waste conversion efforts across the local governments.
The Commissioner for Housing and Environment, Barrister Paul Omotosho, had at the event lamented that Poor waste management constituted serious environmental challenge to governments in Nigeria.
Noting that this had resulted in all forms of pollution, flooding and erosion, the Commissioner informed that it had equally taxed governments which had committed sizeable sums into managing and/or controlling the situation without much improvement.
Omotosho said: “This explains why the state government through the Environment Ministry has embraced the NESREA initiative on demonstration of waste control projects as an intervention aimed at segregating waste at source through colour coded bins and converting same to wealth.
Chairman EKSWMA further explained that the establishment had distributed over a thousand pieces of colour-coded wheelie bins for the collection of organic waste from homes in the GRA and Federal Housing Estates.
He said government would soon take delivery of additional five gabbage trucks while a new set of 12,000 units of wheelie bins for sale to residents at Ado-Ekiti and Ikere-Ekiti at rock bottom prices, adding “The reason for all these is to ease sorting of compostible (organic) waste from the inorganic wastes at source across homes for the production of manure or organic fertilizer and the plastic pellets.
“The two plants were commissioned by the state governor and the honourable Minister of the Environment, Hajia Hadiza Malaifa on June 11 this year.
“Happily, I can say now that both the composite manure (organic manure) which is useful to farmers, horticulturists and beautification and the plastic pellets from the waste processing plants have been packaged in 10kg and 15kg bags and are currently on sale at friendly prices at designated centres across the state, most especially at our office in the capital here”, Morakinyo said.
He said further: “Two weeks ago we gave to Ojaba Market an open 10 tonne capacity waste bin. We have intensified strict enforcement of the State Sanitation Law to prevent indiscriminate dumping of refuse on road medians, the highways and other public places.”
The commencement of the production of organic manure by the state government was further supported by the Authority’s General Manager (GM) Engr. Muyiwa Fatoba, who explained that two processing plants located at the identified waste-dump sites have begun production of manure from waste generated from Ado and Ikere Ekiti.
According to the GM, experts are being packaged in 10 Kilogram and 15 Kilogram bags.
He charged stakeholders particularly the youth to take advantage of the opportunity provided by government’s gesture towards improving the agriculture sector by patronising the venture.
