Osun Govt Trains Over 1,000 Women, Youth in Waste-to-Energy Initiative

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As part of efforts to promote green entrepreneurship and reduce environmental pollution, the Osun State Government has stepped up its climate action agenda with the training of no fewer than 1,000 women and youths on waste-to-energy technology.

The event, held in Osogbo on Friday, was themed, “”Power from Plenty: Turning Local Waste into Clean Energy for Osun Communities.”

Speaking at the event, The Director

General & Special Envoy of Osun State Government on Climate Change and

Renewable Energy, Professor Chinwe Obuaku-Igwe, said Osun is deliberately targeting women and youths because they remain the most vulnerable to climate change impacts and are also key to community development.

She said, “Youth and woman are the most vulnerable and populations in every given polity.

They always bring different set of capacity or capabilities to a community.

Like I said over there,the youth bring ideas,woman bring innovation and communality.

“They are the ones mostly impacted by effect of climate change. In Osun State, we have decided to prioritize them, not just to, with regards to adaptation and mitigation,but with regards to revenue generation amd green entrepreneurship, which we are introducing into the state. We are targeting 1000 youths and women.

“Today’s training is the second batch of the inaugural one we had in August this year, the first one was on waste to wealth and this second one is on waste to energy and the goal is to target green entrepreneurship, to teach them how they can move away from a linear economy to secularity, to make them understand that waste is a resources and it is an opportunity for them to not just keep the environment clean or improve their well being but to also generate income and if you look at the nature of waste, the goal is also to teach them to understand that the benefits of waste is multi-faceted and complex.

“Today’s training focuses on the complexity of generating energy from waste as different from the first set of training whose was basically to introduce the basic of waste to wealth.”

Also speaking, co-founder of Waste-Swap, Mr. Taiwo Adewole, said the session introduced participants to practical ways of converting plastic, nylon, used tyres, animal and even toilet waste into gas, diesel and petrol.

“We demonstrated how a car can run on diesel produced from waste. The technology is locally built, easy to operate and can be replicated by cooperatives and local governments across Osun,” he said.

Adewole added that the initiative would drastically reduce environmental pollution across the state while creating jobs, boosting agricultural productivity and encouraging self-sustaining energy use.

“We envisage a time when it will be hard to see nylon littering the streets of Osun because people will be converting them to fuel. It will save money, clean the environment and create employment,” he said.