Global Recycling Day: Unilag’s AFRETEC unveils waste to wealth initiative

The University of Lagos’ (UNILAG) African Network of Engineering Technology (AFRETEC) unveiled waste to wealth initiative in collaboration with the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), on Tuesday, March 18, at Olusosun Landfill.

Adelopo AbdulGaniyu, the principal quality control officer for waste, water, sewage, and environment at UNILAG speaking at the event which was organized in commemoration of World Recycling Day, said AFRETEC inclusive digital transformation seed grant research project on application of AI for extracting carbon from landfill waste for renewable energy is a grant meant to solve problem of Africa by Africans.

“Our own project is about using waste as a means of producing semiconductor, super capacitor, which is part of a tool used in renewable energy.

“Today, we are presenting some of our findings to the audience at Olusosun. We want a bottom-up solution, not an up-bottom solution, we’re saying Nigerians will have to contribute in creating a solution that is sustainable for themselves,” he said.

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Adelopo said the first part of the project is carbon calculation using artificial intelligence (AI), to understand the nature of waste in Olusosun landfill; and how much carbon can be gotten and can be of interest to the economy, benefit the people, and include digital usage at the landfill.

Besides, he explained that in marking the Global Recycling Day, the organisers in collaboration with Human Concern Foundation International organised a medical outreach to appreciate the waste workers because they are contributing to the management of everybody’s ways.

“They need to also be appreciated to mark the 2025 World Recycling Day. The theme for this year’s event is RecyclingHeroes, a tribute to the individuals, organisations, and communities making extraordinary efforts to recycle,” he noted.

Adelopo in his presentation, titled; “Digital Awareness among Landfill Workers: Challenges and Opportunities” said some of the challenges are resistance to technology adoption, infrastructure limitations, and job displacement concerns, among others.

However, in face of these challenges he reiterated that there are massive opportunities especially for the youngsters, and inclusivity enhancement opportunity.

“The young workforce presents an opportunity to integrate digital tools, such as AI-driven waste tracking and mobile applications for landfill monitoring. Digital tools can optimise logistics for truck operators and waste pickers, reducing inefficiencies in waste collection and disposal.

“Bridging the gender gap by designing technology that accommodates diverse user needs can improve workforce participation and efficiency,” he said.

Some of the findings of the research according to Adelopo include a promising landscape for adopting inclusive digital tools in landfill management, given the young workforce, critical stakeholder involvement, and existing experience base.

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However, he stressed that efforts must be made to address gender disparities, digital literacy gaps, and resistance to technological change.

“By leveraging the strengths and opportunities while mitigating the weaknesses and threats, digital interventions can enhance efficiency, sustainability, and inclusivity in landfill operations,” he said

Babatunde Sawyerr, senior lecturer, Department of Computer Science, at UNILAG in his presentation titled; “Application of AI Techniques for Extracting Carbon from Landfill Waste for Renewable Energy- Work Package 3” explained that the purpose of the third package is to transform data collected from the Landfills into machine understandable form and use the resultant features to train the Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and use it to predict the Carbon content of the waste collected.

“We’ll transform the colours to numbers or vectors, which represents values using programming language,” he explained.

However, he said that converting the photographs taken from the Landfills to machine understandable form can be very difficult and tedious due to the traditional manual method of extracting features.

Muyiwa Gbadesin, the managing director of LAWMA represented by Mumuni Olumide, head of Landfill earlier in his address said the introduction of AI to managing climate change would be a major global phenomenon and drive.

“For us LAWMA, we are working strategically in ensuring landfill gas and carbon emission is minimised.

“One of the landmark achievements that we’re making in LAWMA is landfill diversion, waste treatment, and we’re partnering with organisation within and outside the country on waste management,” he said.

Siphila Mumenya, dean of faculty of Engineering at the University of Nairobi in Kenya, in her presentation said the two countries share similar experiences, but, noted that her team’s research landscape is smaller than Olusosun Landfill.

Mumenya highlighted during the stakeholders’ discussion that AI is the fourth industrial revolution driver, and that Africa needs data centres, because AI will continue to be biased to the continent if there are no African data storage.