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Effective Waste Management crucial for Sustainable Development

Nigeria's quest to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030 could be a mirage, if the country remains reluctant to implement strategies, practices and processes that will enable it effectively manage its rising waste level, Group Managing Director, Alpha Mead Facilities, Femi Akintunde, has said.

Akintunde, an Engineer, who expressed concerns over the country's pace in articulating an inclusive Waste Management plan noted that the current trend is a threat to achieving the SDGs which are just few years away.

Speaking at the National Waste Management conference recently held in Lagos, the facility management expert explained that giving the integral role of effective Waste Management to achieving the SDGs, the country needs to rethink its strategy with keen attention to; developing a holistic Waste Management plan, encouraging Public Private Partnership (PPP) in the sector and aligning current actions with the principle of waste hierarchy, which thrives on the principles of reduction, re-use, recycling and disposal.
Akintunde pointed out that with the exception of Lagos which has recorded appreciable success in managing it's over 10,000 tons of urban waste daily, most states currently grapple with two major challenges of inadequate capacity to cope with the upsurge in the volume of generated waste and the lack of thorough implementation and enforcement strategy of necessary regulations.

Corroborating Akintunde's claim, Manager, Sustainability and Climate, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Mrs. Morris Atoki, listed other challenges scuttling the country's waste management value chain to include; lack of modern technology, policy formulation/strategy implementation, lack of skilled professionals, monitoring and control among others.

For the Managing Director, Globetech Ramedial Nigeria Limited, Ola Oresanya, environmental degradation and infrastructural decay are part of the many challenges of Sustainable development with waste management being a visible index for performance of Urban Administration.

Culled from The Guardian Newspaper, January 2017