…Speaks at Harvard Climate Action Week Parley
By Olasunkanmi Akoni
The Lagos State Government has announced its readiness to partner with investors on projects that will convert municipal solid waste into energy, as part of efforts to promote sustainable waste management and climate adaptation.
The State Commissioner for the Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, disclosed this while speaking as a panelist at the Harvard University Climate Action Week themed “Rising Seas, Resilient Communities, Climate Adaptation Strategies in West Africa.”
Wahab said Lagos, with a population of over 20 million people and an estimated 13,000 metric tonnes of waste generated daily, is adopting a climate-friendly approach that treats waste as a resource.
According to him, the state has developed a climate adaptation and resilience plan, carried out pre-feasibility studies on waste-to-energy and wastewater projects, and signed a contractual agreement with a Ghana-based company to process part of its daily waste output into compost, recyclable plastics, and fertilizers.
“If that contractual obligation is successfully carried out, we plan to also decommission some of our major landfill sites at Olusosun and Solous. These efforts symbolize the progress of collaboration,” he explained.
He noted that Lagos, being a coastal city, faces threats such as sea level rise, heavy rainfall, heat waves, and flash flooding. To address this, the state has invested in drainage infrastructure, enforced environmental laws against building on floodplains, and continued sensitization against indiscriminate dumping of waste.
The commissioner also raised concerns over the city’s expanding landmass from 3,577 square kilometers to 4,050 square kilometers due to reclamation activities. He emphasized that all reclamation projects must obtain Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) approvals and include drainage master plans to manage stormwater.
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