Cholera outbreak: LAWMA advocates cleaner environment

Executive Chairman, LAWMA, Olumuyiwa Adejokun

In the face of the recent outbreak of cholera in some parts of the state, Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) has charged residents of the state to maintain cleaner environment and observe personal hygiene.

Executive Chairman, LAWMA, Olumuyiwa Adejokun said improper environmental practices such as waste burning, especially domestic wastes and tyres could be injurious to human health as well as the environment.

“We try as much as possible to discourage the burning of tyres, which can be injurious to human health. Basically what we do is we pick the disposed tyres and we have a section where we keep them,” he said in Lagos on Friday.

He stated that the agency had adopted various advocacy mechanisms to sensitise residents of the metropolis on the need to maintain effective sanitation and personal hygiene in their surroundings.

Adejokun noted that though the rainy season hampered the turn-around time of waste managers’ trucks at the landfill sites, the situation would not deter the Authority in ensuring effective waste evacuation across the state.

He stated that the Authority had embarked on capping the landfill sites with laterites to improve the working condition of the sites.

“It’s not easy for the bulldozers to push waste to wherever we want to push them to because of the nature of the soil during the rainy season, that notwithstanding, we have to do our job. We’re on top of it,” he said.

The LAWMA chairman also advocated the teaching of effective waste management in schools, which he believed would instill the habit of cleanliness and hygiene in the younger ones.

Meanwhile, the General Manager of the Authority, Mr. Segun Adeniji stated that bulldozers had been deployed at Solous 1 dumpsite, Igando to clear the dumpsite, thus paving way for free movement of compactor trucks, which by extension would improve waste evacuation in the surrounding environment.

He appealed to residents in the state to observe the monthly environmental sanitation exercise, bag and containerize their wastes and patronize only approved PSP operators.