A Don in the Department of Forestry and Wildlife Management, College of Environmental Resources Management (COLERM) and the Director of Zoological Park of the University, Dr. Moses Oyatogun, has devised an alternative cooking gas from Biodegradable waste, which is found to be economical and environmentally-friendly. Speaking at the COLERM Lecture Series titled, “Waste to Wealth, Health and Fertilizer Production in Nigeria: The Nature’s Way”, Dr. Oyatogun described Biodegradable waste as one that could be broken down within a short period of time into its base compounds by micro-organisms and other living things. Dr. Oyatogun, whose research interests cover Range Management, Wildlife Ecology, Wildlife Domestication and Agroforestry, added that Biodegradable waste were commonly found in municipal solid waste sometimes called Biodegradable Municipal Waste (BMW), which include green waste, food waste, paper waste and Biodegradable animal products. According to him, other Biodegradable wastes include human waste, manure, sewage, and slaughterhouse waste. He added that in the absence of oxygen, much of the waste items would decay into methane through a process called anaerobic digestion, adding that the main thrust of his presentation was to highlight how all Biodegradable waste products generated daily can be re-channeled into anaerobic digesters to generate methane gas and liquid organic fertilizers that can be further recycled and reused for sustainable and integrated agricultural production. 
Dr. Oyatogun said that land, forests, fossil fuels and minerals were important sources of capital, adding that wealth in monetary terms, could be measured as natural, human and physical assets. His words, “wealth can be categorised into three: personal property, monetary savings and capital wealth”. He said many research had been carried out in the country without much impact, noting that until “we meet research with development, we will still remain a developing nation”, … “if we observe nature well, we get so many things from it”. He further observed that the serious environmental problems to be addressed in the nation included deforestation and desert encroachment, as well as harnessing of the abundant natural resources. 
The Don said wealth provides the type of social security that could help in protecting against unforeseen decline in man’s living standard in the event of job loss or emergencies, saying that it can also be transformed into home ownership, business ownership or a college education.
Dr. Oyatogun, a member of the American Society of Range Management and the East African Wildlife Society, gave a vivid illustration of the development of low cost polyethylene tube prototype digester to utilise animal and Biodegradable biomass wastes to generate cooking gas and liquid fertilizer and noted that the prototype of the Biogas was being used at the FUNAAB Zoological Park and other places.
Earlier, the Dean of COLERM, Professor Clement Adeofun, said that the lecture was an important academic programme, adding that the immediate past Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academic, Professor Toyin Arowolo, was the first speaker to deliver the lecture, followed by Professor Jonathan Bello, a former Head of Department in the College. According to him, “it is an important event, which for over a decade; we have not had an opportunity to host”. Meanwhile, the Chairman of the occasion and the Dean, College of Engineering (COLENG), Professor Johnson Adewumi, stated that with the appropriate technology in place, it would be easy to convert waste to gas while the problem of erratic power supply in the University would be a thing of the past.
