Lagos is the largest city in Nigeria and one of the largest cities in the world. The waste management authority in the city (LAWMA) collect ca 13,000 tons/day wastes that is mixed wastes. They have several open landfill (or dumping area) around the city with full of scavengers, which is similar to most of the developing countries. I visited one of them in 2010 and wrote something about it. Now, I visited this site again and saw a great development. A private company (WestAfricaENRG) made an investment for waste sorting since 2014. They have ca 300 employees (including many of the previous scavengers) and receive ca 1000-2000 tons/day mixed wastes and sort it with machines to separate small wastes (called compostable materials) and then manually all the valuable materials such as glasses, metals, plastics, papers, etc. The company claims that they separate can 20-25% of the wastes and recyclable that is sold to be processed and used again. The rest (including compostables) goes still to the landfill. It is a great step to improve the waste management in the country.
Another interesting point is that the company encourage people in the residential area around the landfill to bring their recycling materials and sell it to the company. Although it has low price, but still better than the municipality that get paid to receive the wastes. It seems it had an interesting social effect to encourage the people to do so! Here are some photos for the process!
Another interesting point is that the company encourage people in the residential area around the landfill to bring their recycling materials and sell it to the company. Although it has low price, but still better than the municipality that get paid to receive the wastes. It seems it had an interesting social effect to encourage the people to do so! Here are some photos for the process!
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