… to guarantee healthy, clean environment, economic benefits
The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki has said that the launching of Edo Recycling Center in Benin City will bring health and economic benefits to residents.
Obaseki made this statement on Friday, September 5, while launching the first recycling collection centre in Edo State.
The Governor, who was represented by the General Manager, Edo State Waste Management Board, Mrs. Rita Idedai, said the initiative will ensure a healthy and clean environment, as well as provide gainful employment opportunities for vulnerable people in the society.
“Today we are launching a recycling collection centre in collaboration with Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance, which is a bank where people from the City can take their waste; plastic, papers, cartons, and cans, can be taken to this bank where they can get money in return for their waste,” Rita said.
The General Manager further expressed that it is the Edo State Government’s initiative to drive a circular economy.
“We have issues of environmental pollution and we have people dying of Malaria. Right now in Nigeria, even here in Benin City, you will see households take all of their waste and dump it everywhere, while in other parts, 50 percent of this waste can easily be transformed into something new or valuable and they get money from it.
“So I wonder and ask myself every time why do we have a resource mismanagement problem? Why do we pollute our environment? Cause ourselves to spend more money in the hospital when we can just transform these things from waste to create value.
“So, with the support of our partners and our amazing host Edo City Transport Service, we came together and have this facility today.
“This is the first community recycling collection center in Benin City. What is this facility supposed to do? It will be a place where anybody in Benin City, first of all, brings their waste, and gets monetary value for it.
“It is the beginning of something new in the state. This is the first one and definitely not going to be the last one,” she said.
“The goal is to have this across the City and the State such that we can ensure everybody understands the value of waste, and everybody has a place that is very accessible to them to capture that value.
“Recycling of waste is a sustainable business, the waste that people will take to this centre, the operator collects it, can process it, sell it to manufacturing companies, in return the operator gets money”, she added.
The representative of the Nigerian Bottling Company, Guinness Plc, Association of Waste Management, and other notable stakeholders appreciated the Edo State Government for the laudable initiative and seek for more centers in other senatorial districts.
