Cleaner Lagos Initiative: Visionscape to employ 200 scavengers

Visionscape Sanitation Solution says it will employ 200 scavengers at its Landfill sites to help in the sorting of waste as part of move to boost the Cleaner Lagos Initiative, CLI.

Chief Operating Officer, Thomas Forgacs, disclosed this during a tour of its Landfill in Epe area of Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, along with top officials of the Lagos State Ministry of the Environment, PSP operators and journalists.

Forgacs said previously, there used to be 500 scavengers on site but that it had reduced to 200, adding that very soon, the body would soon employ scavengers between the ages of 1 and 50.

According to him, the landfill, would be fully completed between 12 and 18 months.

He said Visionscape had a plan to train scavengers who were below the ages of 18 years for future purposes of reintegration.

Also speaking, Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Babatunde Durosinmi-Etti, said that the Sanitary Landfill currently being built in Epe was in steady progress.

He said that the landfill, being a critical aspect of the waste management value chain, was accorded the deserved priority by the Lagos State Government as it had concessioned the 880,000 square meter landfill to Visionscape Sanitation Solutions to deliver the construction of weighing areas and road ways, “leachate” collection ponds and sediment pond as well as material recovery facilities, among others.

He said the new facility would ensure the protection of public health and the local environment as well as the global environment, while providing an efficient and effective final disposal option for waste generated in the State.

Durosinmi-Etti said that the landfill was a component of the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) which is a holistic waste management programme aimed at revitalizing the entire Solid Waste Management sector to have far-reaching benefits and multiplier effects for the State.

The Commissioner stressed that the government was committed to providing a sustainable and functional environment that would ensure development and prosperity.

However, the construction of the Epe Landfill includes the excavation, transportation and re-landfilling of existing solid waste and new construction of an Ecopark.

The maintenance facility includes truck bays for repair work and vehicle inspections, as well as a wash bay for cleaning vehicles and equipment.