29th December, 2014
Nigeria’s Lagos State Wastes Management Authority (LAWMA) said on Monday it would soon turn the Olusosun dumpsite in Ojota into a golf course. The country’s most popular refuse dump has been a subject of foreign documentaries in the past because of the many activities of scavengers at the site.
The managing director of the authority, Mr Ola Oresanya, appears now to have found a new use for the site.
He said the golf course project would come under the agency’s second 10-year-rolling plan.
He said that the rolling plan would also focus on development of modern disposal sites.
“In the rolling plan, we are focusing downstream and our downstream is at the disposal sites.
“Our landfills development is a real focus, we already sign contract for development of our state of the heart landfills sites at Epe and Badagry. And those landfill sites are the real focus for the next rolling plan and a site also will be located in Ogun state. That is around Mowe/Ibafo area that we took over.
“Then we will close down the Olusosun dumpsite completely and turn it into golf course. We will continue to build transfer stations and material recovery plants in Lagos.
“Those are parts of the ten year rolling plan and we will increase our waste conversion to almost 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the wastes we generate in Lagos. The wastes will now be converted to something very useful within that ten years rolling plan.
“Then, we want to make sure that we get the economics of waste management very well and the economics must be perfect within the next ten year. So those are the key ingredients of those plans.’’
Oresanya said that the wastes conversion programme would be expanded in 2015 to process wastes into useful products that would be exported to Asian countries.
According to him, LAWMA now converts bottles and tyres into jerseys, fibres and asphalt at Mile Two in Amuwo Odofin Local Government area.