Unknown Potential Aspect Of Waste Management In Our Society- Adetunji Lam-Adesina Reveals

My name is Adetunji Lam Adeshina, I am a social entrepreneur. I started my educational activities with the Government College Ibadan. I had little time at Obafemi Awolowo University before I moved to Bowen university, and after my one-year compulsory National Youth Service (NYSC), I left for the United Kingdom where I obtained masters degree in marketing.

After my masters, I joined the Lewis banking group, and during that time, I felt I had a passion for anything that has to do with the environment and nature as a whole, and that I think is what resulted in what I’m currently doing Waste Management Consultancy.

Like I said earlier, I fell in love with the environment and nature when I was with the Lewis Banking Group in the UK, and also I have always had this feeling that success should be a collective responsibility, as in when success is shared, I believe its more productive and more rewarding.

So, at the initial stage, I felt like I have to assist some people to get a job because I know that most Nigerian youths have challenges in getting a good job, some of them are even graduates but couldn’t get a job, so I said, I must create an avenue to assist the government by creating a venture that can reduce the numbers of youths that are yet to be employed.

So, apart from the fact that I  myself love giving back to society because of the social side of me, I also appreciate helping people which is also the main part of me as well. So, putting both together, that was how I ended up being a socio-entrepreneur, and to me, that is what I think led me to the creation of such a venture.

I discovered that waste management which formed a core part of the environment has a whole lot of potentials to solve a whole lot of problems within our system.

For instance, looking at the environment in total, for me, I think the environment can drive a lot of success out of the system especially within the youth because one of the problems we have presently is bringing up the youth in the right way and creating job opportunities for them.

So, I talked to myself that there will be a major arm of my business which is the CSR and that was what led to me coming up with Eleven Eleven Twelve Foundation.

Now, another aspect of the potential of the Waste Management is that aspect of turning our waste into wealth, For us, everything we call waste has the opportunity to be reuse or recycle so why are we dumping them? The research team came up with the idea of Composting, and the pilot of Composting is not the end, we just got the result from the lab and we are doing theoretical writing on it. There are other things we are working on but these are the key things we are most likely going to be working on in 2021.

Empowerment, remember I said there are three keys this organization is based on; Advocacy, Research, and Empowerment. In terms of empowerment, for us, the youth is the key. For the youth to be able to do what we want for a better Continents.

And now turning our waste to wealth which is the next level on our agenda, will be of great value to both government and society because the aspect will reduce the death rate in our society, most of our women in the rural areas still make use of kerosene and firewood to cook, but our waste can be converted to gas and that will make life easier and reduce the death rate of women due to exposure to air pollution.

Also our government at all levels can key into the project and make use of it to generate more job opportunities for our teeming youths, and also make lots of money through it, because I’m so sure that it will boost their internal generated revenue both at the State and national level.

For instance, in Oyo State,  I discovered that over 50% of the waste in the Oyo state is food waste, as the waste food from the kitchen and this is becoming a serious issue as the dumpsite keeps growing every day. There is an international association that only my company belongs to in Oyo State, and we have been having a discussion on how those waste can be reused for our consumption, and I have been made to realize that those waste can be used for our different purposes such as Fertilizers for our farmers and also for cooking gas.

So currently, as I am speaking with you, we discovered that also on one part, the issue of cooking with kerosene and stove, cooking with firewood causes air pollution and this air pollution is killing a lot of people, majority of whom are women. So, the research team has put heads together to solve several problems and how do we go about it?

The research team has come up with the production of briquette and the kind of briquette we do is from sawmill wastes, paper waste and other forms of waste, we mix it up together and go through a process and to form briquette, and intellnyounas we are here speaking, our own briquette has passed through the testing stage, it had gone through the laboratory and another testing to confirm the air quality which far better than cooking with kerosene and firewood.

My father lived his life to serve people, he loves giving to society, he loves seeing people smile around him, so I can say I inherited the act of giving back to society from him, I also can say I too love to see people smiling around me, and that is why I launched the Eleven Eleven Twelve Foundation for his remembrance because he died on 11, 11, 12.

But I can basically say that the enterprise part of me is what I inherited from my mother because she is a businesswoman so she groomed us on that side because at a point, I was involved in her business and she taught me how to put one and one together in the right and legal way, she taught me how to be hard working and how to always drive for success, bringing both together got out the social entrepreneurship in me.