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A major upgrade at Lagos’s main waste disposal facility has boosted daily evacuation capacity by more than 76 percent, with over 18,600 metric tonnes of refuse removed from the city in a single week, the state’s waste management authority said on Wednesday.
The Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) processed 1,866 truckloads of municipal solid waste across its disposal sites between July 28 and August 3, Managing Director Muyiwa Gbadegesin told an operations review meeting in Ijora-Olopa.
The Olusosun Disposal Facility, the agency’s largest dumpsite, handled 1,012 of those trips, up from 574 in the seven days before access road repairs and new disposal platforms were completed, Gbadegesin said.
The 438-trip increase translated to a capacity jump of more than 76 percent at the facility, he added.
Gbadegesin said the intervention had cut waiting times for trucks and improved turnaround, addressing bottlenecks that had hindered operations during heavy rainfall.
The agency recorded its busiest day on August 1, when 349 trucks delivered an estimated 3,490 metric tonnes of waste for processing, according to the managing director.
Other facilities at Ewu-Elepe, Badagry and Oke-Osho, along with the Waste-to-Wealth Material Recovery Facility in Igando, supplemented operations and ensured coverage across the sprawling city, Gbadegesin said.
“The steady improvement in our operational figures confirms that investment in critical infrastructure produces measurable results,” he said.
“We are witnessing faster truck turnaround, improved access to disposal facilities and increased waste evacuation capacity, all of which are translating into better service delivery for Lagos residents.”
Gbadegesin said the authority planned to build on the gains through additional transfer loading stations, expanded recovery infrastructure, waste-to-energy projects and the purchase of more compactor trucks.
