Saturday 18 August 2012

SM4CC SERIES: REFUSE DUMPS TO GARBAGE ISLANDS

The above picture represents all the farewell or welcome I receive leaving or entering the building I live in. This, this eyesore, has being a constant source of worry and all efforts put in to rectify this have been frustrated – the extra trash bins have not been provided neither have the LAWMA officials increased their pick up rounds. Any time I see the above, the pictures, I make a deliberate and conscious effort not to be sad. Haba!

What does it take for the LAWMA officials to have a number or something which Lagosians can call as soon as they have sufficient trash? Why wait for their bi-weekly runs? Two weeks is a long time to leave refuse lying around, especially for a state like Lagos, where the rain comes, our drainages get blocked and then, flooding. Which reminds me, please let’s stop clearing our drainages (gutters) and then leave the waste by the roadside.
Going around my neighborhood, such heaps exist everywhere. Hence, I have often tried to imagine if other residents are faced with the same situation and complained as often as I have to no avail. Now, try and imagine if this is the situation in some areas of Lagos, it is a recipe for disaster. Please, effective and prompt disposal of waste would go a long way in avoiding/fighting floods.
It’s such a relief I’ve being able to put this out there, thanks to an article I came across sometime in the past month. The write up spoke about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which somehow I have never heard about but brought to mind the floating debris I see on the Lagoon whenever I’m on the Third Mainland Bridge.
Of course, I got online and read as much as I could, a link to a short and educative read is below, and found out there’s an Atlantic Garbage Patch too. I don’t know if it is a good thing or not that for now, it is on the North Atlantic i.e. around America, Cuba etc. All I know is attention needs to be paid to this. Why?
I mentioned noticing smaller garbage patches on the Lagos Lagoon earlier, I don’t know too much of geography but I do know that the Lagoon empties into the Atlantic Ocean via the Lagos Harbor.  It isn’t too much of a stretch to say the all that garbage empties into the Atlantic, is it? It is a post for another day but early findings and investigations show that, waste management in Lagos isn’t “all that”, what is done with all the waste? Where does it go?
Sources
3.     Trash Islands

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