To involve the youth and quell their unrest, the North-East Development Commission has stated its willingness to develop a trash recycling facility in the area. This information was provided in Gombe State at the start of a weeklong training on effective waste management techniques and the A-Z of recycling for 100 scavengers and 50 trainers by the commission’s head of environmental and natural resources, Adamu Lawan. He claims that the action is intended to support young people in rubbish collection and that the remuneration for waste/refuse scavengers is intended to further deter young people from becoming a societal problem.
The facility that the commission will build would depend on the waste collected, according to Adamu. We believe there should be a way to turn societal garbage into resources or products; all we want is to get them off the street, he continued. However, they would depend on the state government to identify the legitimate beneficiaries, which is why they would work with the ministry of the environment. The materials will ultimately be sold to businesses. The NEDC is already working on Phase II; possibly by the following phase, it would be in each of the senatorial districts and then the LGAs.
The NEDC wants to establish recycling facilities in each LGA so that waste can be collected there and converted into useful new products. Shehu Abdullahi, the state director-general and focal person for the commission in Gombe, also spoke and exhorted the attendees to seize the chance to advance themselves toward larger financial resources. Ishaku Kure, who works for the Ministry of the Environment, stated that the training was necessary and timely and that the state would save money as a result. The Gombe State government spends a lot of money on cleanliness and garbage disposal, but with this training, he claimed, will reduce the financial budget in that area and also create cash for the scavengers.
Prof. Bibi Mohammed, a resource from the Department of Resources Management at the Federal University of Kashere, discussed the importance of trash management. He stated that the challenge of waste management is one of the issues the globe is facing. “The existing established authorities are handicapped and don’t have the technical cap, resources, finance, and so on to maintain and effectively manage artificial waste. That is where the scavengers come in to improve on the deficiencies of the existing authorities. Huge wealth abounds in waste management.”
