December 1, 2014, students walking in front of the School of Sustainability at Tempe. Nigerian leaders turn to ASU and the City of Phoenix's Resource Innovation and Solutions Network to improve Lagos' sanitation infrastructure.? (Photo by Emily Johnson)A unique partnership between ASU, Phoenix and Nigerian leaders aims to turn Lagos, the most populated city in Nigeria, into a more sustainable community.
The approximately 21 million residents of Lagos live within a 390 square mile area and generate about 12,000 tons of waste per day. With such an immense amount of residents and trash cohabiting a small area, Lagos has been dealing with issues from cramped living quarters to air pollution.
Resource Innovation and Solutions Network, a program developed by the Phoenix Public Works department, was established in order to convert various waste materials into useable resources. John Trujillo, public works director for City of Phoenix, said growing urbanized areas often come across problems dealing with growth.
“People might not think about this problem now, but we’re going to grow in our region,” Trujillo said. “With the continuation of growth in our community, we can’t sustain this current system. We must find a way to divert the trash and create economic value from it.”
The first RISN hub was developed in Phoenix earlier this year and has already earned international recognition.
Jason Franz, marketing and communication manager for the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives, said several primary players in Lagos reached out to ASU in order to establish an RISN program in their city.
ASU's Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiatives has partnered with the city of Phoenix's Reimagine Phoenix initiative to create the RISN hub in Phoenix.
Franz said the RISN hub in Lagos has worked with several businesses and innovators to turn the compiling trash into a useful resource.
“RISN works with businesses, innovators and the Nigerian government to use resources and recycle products,” Franz said. “We want to keep as much trash off of the planet and out of the landfills while developing new businesses and jobs.”
The RISN program will use biomass energy as a starting point, which will be generated through the breakdown of the waste Lagos has already produced, Franz said.
Dan O’Neill, general manager for the Global Sustainability Solutions Services, said ASU and RISN will act more like a teacher to the initiative in Lagos, providing advising and consulting rather than financing.
“We are using what we’ve learned with the (RISN) hub in Phoenix to teach the people in Lagos how to achieve certain goals by establishing and operating projects,” O’Neill said.
Earlier this year, the Sustainability Institute at Lagos was founded, which provides Lagos citizens with the necessary knowledge to overcome challenges that come with the rapidly-growing urbanization of an area.
Olufemi Olarewaju, co-founder of the institute, said in a press statement, that the school’s framework was based off of the information gained during many years the University held its own as the first school of sustainability in the nation.
Trujillo said the RISN hub in Phoenix has accomplished many goals in order to work on sustainability efforts within the city.
“Different cities within the metro region come together to come up with ideas to get rid of solid waste,” Trujillo said. “We’re also conducting a study on food waste to see how we can work with private sectors in order to reduce this waste.”
Phoenix has supported the project since day one and is driven by the fact that urban areas such as Phoenix and Lagos must solve their current problems in order to continue to grow within their region, Trujillo said.
While the city is not directly involved in the project in Lagos, the foundation it has helped establish here in Phoenix has been transferred overseas. Trujillo said Phoenix has supported the RISN initiative due to the many complex issues each metropolitan area faces as it develops.
“As a city, we can’t solve all of our issues alone. We need private sectors and institutions to help solve these issues with solid waste,” Trujillo said. “We can’t continue to travel 7 million miles just to transport garbage to another city. Garbage is a resource that has an energy value that we need to extract.”
This process will also help create jobs in the rapidly growing community.
“We need to create a program that allows material to be collected and processed locally,” Trujillo said. “There is a lot of trash that can be reused locally, such as creating a byproduct from plastic. We want to bring businesses locally to utilize material so it doesn't have to be transported all over.”
Franz explained that there are several major goals, such as job development and a cleaner city, for the hub in Lagos that will require the ability of developers involved in the project to think about the long-term.
“In the long-term, the goal of the hub in Nigeria is to improve the economy and business base while developing jobs, cleaning up the city, and improve energy systems,” Franz said. “We want to bring an overall improvement to Lagos.”
Reach the reporter at Jlsuerth@asu.edu or on Twitter at @SuerthJessica.
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