The Sahara Foundation in partnership with Lagos State Employment Trust Fund and Wecyclers, have launched the first of its 12 recycling hubs in Isolo Local Government Area of Lagos State to create jobs and promote a sustainable environment.
The launch of the recycling hub took place at Isolo local government area.
The Director, Governance and Sustainability, Sahara Group, Ejiro Gray, said, “This initiative aim to promote a sustainable environment, create jobs, and empower the people of Isolo community to adopt recycling as an effective waste management practice with some financial reward, with the potential to support a movement of environmentally conscious Lagosians.”
She added that Sahara Foundation was fully committed to impacting lives and livelihoods across its host communities in a sustainable way.
On her part, the Director of Programmes, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund, Omolara Adewumi, said, “The essence of the partnership is to launch recycling hubs in minimum of 12 Local Government Areas in Lagos State.
“We are doing this because we understand the significant role recycling plays in the environment, and it is about time for us as a country and continent to start taking climate change a bit seriously.
“We have all noticed the high sea levels, the flooding from last year and the effects on our drainages, pollution for a continent that does not even play that much role in manufacturing plastic.”
She noted that Africa was one of the continents that was most impacted significantly because it still do not understand the impact of waste recycling.
According to her, “We decided last year that we will start supporting the green economy, how can we educate Lagos State residents on recycling waste and turn waste to wealth.
“For every plastic being produced there is so much carbon dioxide that affects us and our children, we plan to do more to support the green economy.”
She added, “For every waste you get paid for that. That is a job. With recyclers, they are creating jobs for drivers, sorters, technicians and even the residents of Lagos State on simply by looking around and picking up plastics and bringing back for them to recycle.”
Speaking further, she said LSETF was established for job and wealth creation, and that in any partnership it ventured into, it was objective because job creation must be behind everything that it was doing.
The Chief Operating Officer, Wecyclers, Oluyemisi Lawal, said that the partnership was to empower people with their waste.
She said, “For us, we do not see waste as something to be thrown away, rather we see it has an opportunity to create business and an opportunity to also clean our environment.
“To foster a cleaner Lagos, we have brought this facility to Isolo and we hope that people in this community will begin to bring out their recyclable waste and exchange it for cash incentive that they can get at the end of each quarter which is April, August and December.”
She added that they did this in 23 communities across the nation and people benefited from the initiative.
