His Excellency, Governor Seyi Makinde, commissioned the recently rehabilitated and upgraded Awotan dumpsite on Thursday, February 25, 2021.
Special Features at the Awotan dumpsite (landfill)
1. Safety measures in place to guard against landfill fire. All the buildings in the dumpsite are connected to a fire hydrant which is linked to a 50,000 litres storage capacity borehole system that supplies the entire neighbourhood.
2. Capping or in lay man’s term, covering of the waste is done every day to reduce air pollution, reduce blowing about of waste materials by wind and to control the leachate. (Leachate is water formed when rain water filters through waste placed in a landfill).
3. A special leachate pond is in place to treat leachate and preserve them for use for irrigation purposes.
In the past, leachate flowed underground and polluted the water in Awotan and its environs.
4. Weighbridge with a capacity of about 100 tonnes to weigh waste being brought in. This is in conformity with the new clean and green architecture of the Oyo State Government.
Private waste collection contractors will be paid by the government for waste brought to the site.
5. A building dedicated to materials recovery and waste recycling. Recycling of recyclable materials such as plastic, aluminium, papers and tin will be carried out on site.
6. Solar cell placed on a portion of the dumpsite to encourage the government to look into the end-of-use of this landfill once it is filled up.
7. The Awotan landfill will be a pilot scale for a renewal energy hub for Oyo State so there are 6 solar cells of 2.3m by 1m at the dumpsite, currently generating 5KVA of electricity which is being used to power the administration block, the weighbridge and the security house.
This prevents any situation where the private waste collection contractors complain that there is no power to weigh their waste as there will be uninterrupted power supply at the dumpsite.
This will also encourage the government to turn the landfill to a renewable energy hub once it is being closed in the next 12 or 15 years.
Below are some comparison pictures.
Slideshow of Awotan dumpsite: pictures taken on February 23, 2021.
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Quite an impressive turn-around of the erstwhile environmentally-unfriendly ‘Awotan dumpsite’. This project will help the people of Oyo state to achieve sustainable waste treatment in the long term. Please keep up the vision, and stick to this transformation agenda.