Two Nigerians shine at waste to wealth show in India

- Two Nigerians have thought out-of-the box on how best to turn waste to wealth

- Their awards have brought them honour in far-away India

- They made Nigeria proud at the recently concluded 6th International Conference on Solid Waste Management (IconSWM 2016) held in India

Two Nigerians made Nigeria proud at the recently concluded 6th International Conference on Solid Waste Management (IconSWM 2016) held in India.

They are Dr Adeniyi Saheed Aremu, a senior lecturer at the department of water resources and environmental engineering, University of Ilorin, Kwara state and Engineer Olasunkanmi Ojowuro of the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), Lagos state.

They won the prestigious “Excellent Paper Award” at the conference for proposing out-of-the-box ideas on how best to turn waste to wealth.

The conference, which is the biggest sustainable conference platform of the International Society of Waste Management, Air and Water (ISWMAW), started in 2009 in India and working for the improvement of solid waste management and protection of the environment.

The 6th IconSWM 2016 was held between November 24 and 26, 2016 at the Gandhi Bhaban and TEQIP Complex in Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal India.

Over 250 delegates from different countries participated in the conference and deliberated on various issues.

The issues focused on were innovation and implementation of sustainable solid waste management, segregation, collection, transportation of waste, treatment technology, policy and strategies, energy recovery, life cycle analysis, climate change, research and business opportunities.

The papers by the two Nigerians were nominated during the conference based on content and quality of paper/research, and the theoretical/implementation/conceptual relevance.

Their victory was announced by Prof. Sadhan K. Ghosh, the chairman of IconSWM 2016 at the valedictory session.

By this feat, the awardees are now automatic members of the International Scientific Committee (ISC) on solid waste management.

Aremu’s paper was titled “Waste to Energy: Developing Countries’ Perspective”.

The paper conceptualises the daily volume and energy value of wastes from developing countries as 4.2 million tons and 9.87 x 109kWh respectively.

Ojowuro’s paper centres on the “case study” category and it attempts to characterize solid wastes from different parts of Lagos metropolis in Nigeria.

In the study, it is estimated that about 13,000 metric tonnes of solid waste is generated daily in Lagos state from various human activities.