As part of its community development initiatives and commemoration of this year’s World Environment Day (WED), Gravitas Investments, on Monday, went on environmental sensitisation at Ajiran community in Eti-Osa area of Lagos State with a view to educating them on creating an environment that is safe and liveable.
Gravitas Investments is a real estate investment and development company, in collaboration with Lagos State government, is developing Gracefield Island. The island is an ambitious mixed-use city development sitting on about 100 hectares of land reclaimed from the Lagos Lagoon.
The company, which is a strong stickler to safe, liveable and sustainable environment, is highly concerned about the welfare and development of the community in which it operates. It had, in the past, done some enlightenment in the area of education for some communities, believing that education plays a big role in the environmental health of a people.
“As part of our community development initiatives, we have done other things in our communities, but this year, because of rising concerns about the environment, we decided to do this sensitisation which we planned as part of the World Environment Day,” Jumoke Owoyeye, the company’s business development officer, explained to BusinessDay in an interview on the sideline of the Tuesday event.
Ozoemezina Nwafor, urban planner at Gravitas, explained to the Ajiran community the need to have a decent environment free from waste and the resultant air pollution, which he said was hazardous.
Nwafor noted that the biggest changes and effects human beings could experience from air pollution were not only real damage to the environment, but also bad changes in the quality of life and severe issues to their health.
To reduce these, he advised the people not to burn household waste, explaining that, “by burning plastic, you release horrible toxic chemicals into the environment some of which will be sucked up by our own nose. Recycle your trash instead.”
The company went to the sensitisation with LasGidisRecyclers – a neighbourhood waste-recycling firm that specialises in PEP plastic and sachet water collection and recycles it into other useful products.
“We are building a new waste collection model; we have identified some streets in Lekki, VI and Ikoyi from where we collect PEP plastic bottles. We recycle these collected wastes in Awoyaya in Ibeju Lekki. We hope to crush them and recycle them into T-shirts, fibres and ropes,” Idu Okwuosa, LasgidisRecyclers’ managing partner, told BusinessDay in an interview.
Nwafor told the community that proper waste disposal was critical because, according to him, certain types of wastes could be hazardous and could contaminate the environment if not handled properly.
He added that improper waste disposal might severely endanger health and immediate environment, which was why Gravitas provided plastic waste bins running into hundreds that were distributed to the natives who participated in the sensitisation programme.
The community complained that the Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) did not come to their area frequently to collect waste, adding that even when they did, bad roads did not allow them to go near individual houses.
They therefore requested that very big waste bins should be provided for them where household wastes could be dropped for easy collection by the waste management authority. Owoyeye assured that they would take their complaints to government and follow them up to ensure that they were addressed.
