The Managing Director, Lagos State Waste Management Authority, Mr Ibrahim Odumboni, has said Lagos State generates 13,000 tonnes of waste daily.

He also expressed regrets that several people disposed their waste irresponsibly by not patronising the appropriate operators but cart pushers that had been outlawed, and vowed to go tough on defaulters.

As a result of the high volume of waste and the need to keep the state free of filth, he said PSP currently had 1,100 trucks while LAWMA as a regulator had 150.

Odumboni worried that some residents had remained adamant in procuring bins and neglected LAWMA’s campaign for every household to adopt a bin.

He said if residents heed to this advice, it would be much easier to collect wastes from homes and business places.

He added that there was a plan to review the waste collection price by 50 per cent in consonance with today’s realities, especially the high cost of diesel and other associated costs that have made operating cost to rise to over 300 per cent.

Odumboni vowed that the law would take its course and that every household or businesses that failed to comply would be prosecuted.

He revealed that in the last two months, over 1,400 cart pushers had been arrested and prosecuted by the enforcement team, with over 3,000 residents fined and hundreds jailed because of infractions.

The LAWMA chief also frowned at some residents that migrated waste from their homes to the middle of the road or inside drains far from their residences.

On challenges that markets were creating for the agency in waste collection, he said it had identified over 450 official markets in Lagos but noted that most of the problems it was having was from unapproved night markets or early morning markets that took place after the LAWMA sweepers must have done their job.

He warned that it would no longer be business as usual as the government expected attitudinal change from members of the public.