LAWMA boss says we need our innovative and enterprising engineers to come up with locally designed and manufactured bailing machines
By Eberechi Obinagwam,
The Managing Director/CEO of the Lagos Waste Management Authority, LAWMA, Ibrahim Odumboni, has hinted at the importance of fabricating bailing machines for the production of plastic materials and urged innovative engineers in the state and country to adopt it.
According to him, the bailing machine when fabricated will make the recycling business more attractive and less capital intensive.
In his keynote address at a stakeholders consultative forum for plastic recycling value-chain, organised by Giz, a German concern, at the Sheraton Hotels, Ikeja, the bailing component of the recycling process, was a vital one, and locally fabricated machines would go a long way in simplifying the process since they would come cheaper and more easily maintained.
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“Bailing is an important component of the plastic recycling process. We need our innovative and enterprising engineers, to come up with locally designed and manufactured bailing machines, that would be durable and affordable for our recycling investors. It will be easy to maintain them. If we have this, the business of plastic recycling will gradually become less capital intensive and better domesticated. This is my challenge to our local engineers and I know they can do it,” he said.
Also, concerning manufacturers using coloured pet bottles for drinks, he frowned and wondered why companies use such for packaging.
“Honestly too, I do not understand why some manufacturers use brown-coloured pet bottles to package drinks for us to consume. Why? You do not see this in the UK or Dubai for example. What is wrong with using white transparent pet bottles? Please, such drink producers should take a second look,” he stated
Speaking further, he disclosed that no less than 500 bags of fertilizer were daily produced from organic waste at a LAWMA facility in Odogunyan, a suburb of Lagos, adding that several tonnes of briquette from sawdust, were also daily produced from another LAWMA facility at Agbowa, also a surburb of Lagos.
Odumboni urged stakeholders to shun needless competition and work in synergy and collaboration, to tap the huge economic opportunity in the business, noting that there was more than enough floating pet bottles to go around all investors in the value chain.
The LAWMA boss at the event took a swipe at some NGOs, exploiting the process with their cosmetic engagements, describing them as a burden, with their sharp and ill-intentioned practices, urging them to be truthful, honest and fair, in their chosen endeavour.
Also speaking, one of the panellists, Mrs Agharese Onaghise, executive secretary of Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance, FBRA, noted that the 22-member group had been self-funding in its various interventions for plastic recovery, promising that the group would collaborate more, to stabilize the recycling value-chain, for fair reward to all stakeholders and investors.
