Oyo battles heaps of refuse in Ibadan metropolis

OYO State has expressed worries about the growing heaps of refuse dumps in some strategic locations in Ibadan metropolis.

    It blamed the indisciminate dumping of refuse on people’s attitude to waste collection and disposal.

The government said it had robust proposals to convert waste generated into energy.

Almost all medians on major roads are lined up with bags of refuse.

It is worse on roads leading into   the city.

Areas like Monatan, Old Ife Road, Ojoo Road, Iwo Road and Sango-Poly Road are worst hit.

Commissioner for Environment Ishola Isaac Adisa described the situation as unfortunate.

He said where the government was having problem was in the area of enforcement of existing environmental laws due to poor attitude of the people towards waste collection and disposal.

“The government has so much interest in what happen in environment. In fact, the philosophy is a safe and clean environment because it will attract investors and guarantee a healthier environment. And the government has taken so much pro-active measures to ensure safe environment, but the problem is that our people are not ready to comply by the rules and regulations for safe environment.

“The obligation of the people towards environment is that everybody must not drop their waste, except where it was provided and everybody must pay for the evacuation of the waste generated.

“The government has put in place an arrangement to make our people accept responsibility for the waste they are generating   – an arrangement that will enumerate the number of houses in Ibadan and make everybody to get private waste collectors,” he said.

According to the commissioner, the government has already accredited about 400 private waste collectors to ensure that all the refuse dumps were cleared without causing health hazard to the people.

He explained that each private waste collector were already allocated to every street and area, adding that individual residents would have to pay a token for the government, who will pay waste collectors for the services rendered.

In the area of enforcement, Adisa noted that the government is planning to establish Neighbourhood Watch to monitor people in each community, who drop waste illegally.

He said: “We are to engage the sanitation environmental officers and as I am talking to you, the governor has approved the engagement of these officers.

“They will wear uniforms and we will station them in strategic locations to see and monitor people dumping waste indiscriminately on major roads. For now, the governor has approved 300 sanitation officers to be engaged. A mobile task force that will include some security agencies will be patrolling the streets to ensure that we have strict compliance.”

The commissioner, who called on the people to stop dumping waste on the roads, warned that the government would henceforth prosecute offenders.

He added that the government had already constituted 10 environmental court tribunals and they would soon begin sitting to prosecute anyone found violating environmental laws.