A waste management arm of Lafarge Africa Plc, Geocycle, has partnered with the Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA) in a cleaning exercise at Bariga market in Lagos.
The programme is meant to commemorate the World Clean Up Day with employees and volunteers from Lafarge together with volunteers from the FBRA recycling partners.
The Head of Geocycle, Lafarge Africa Plc, Daniel Adedokun, said: “We drive a circular economy across everything we do, to keep materials in use for as long as possible, giving them a second life – and a third and a fourth – and using only what is needed to preserve nature. Improving waste collection is fundamental to advancing the circular economy – and to reducing marine litter.”
The Commercial Manager, Geocycle, Temitope Dosumu, said the purpose of the cleaning event is to sensitise people within Bariga community and its environs on the importance of sorting waste from source and cleaning up the environment and streets. “This will go a long way to reduce the volume of waste that goes to the dump sites and drainages and will prevent poor waste management.”
About 75 per cent of all plastics ever produced have accumulated in landfills and the natural environment. The world is on track to add 12 billion more tons to that amount by 2050, or more than double the already alarming amount.
Adedokun continued: “Geocycle is stepping up to this challenge by helping businesses achieve plastic neutrality. This year, Geocycle week’s theme is “Think Planet Think Solutions”. In Nigeria, the company has partnered with some industries driving plastic neutrality since 2018. In 2020, 70,000 tons of various types of waste, representing 9 per cent of its energy across the country, was co-processed in our cement kilns.”
The world is currently faced with the worst climate change occurrences in recent history; frequent and intense droughts, storms, heat waves, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and warming oceans.
He reaffirmed Lafarge Africa’s sustainability agenda that transcends individual efforts into partnerships with other organisations and companies to ensure progress for people and the planet and for a greener sustainable environment.
For Lafarge Africa, one of the key ways of meeting its global commitment to reducing carbon emissions is through investing in waste pre-processing and co-processing. This explains the solution in the 2021 theme of aiding “Planet Solutions” for plastic neutrality for many industries. This investment is steadily allowing us to move away from sources of energy, which are main contributors to carbon emissions towards renewable sources of energy to power its plants.
SOURCE: https://guardian.ng/property/geocycle-lafarge-in-waste-to-wealth-scheme/
