THE IMPACT OF SOLID WASTE LANDFILLS IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT 
Wastes have major impact on the environmental quality both nationally and globally. The waste produced could be hazardous in nature. The aim of this research is to assess the waste disposal and landfill in Zaria industrial estate, Nigeria, and the potential hazard it comes with. The study employed questionnaire administration and in-depth interview instruments. The industries for this study were purposively selected namely, Sunseed industries, Premier Seed Company, Olam Nigeria Limited and Nalmaco Industry. A total of 398 respondents‘ within the industrial zone were sampled in order to get information on the effect the waste has on them. The study employs descriptive statistic in analysis of data by the use of frequency tables and percentage in presenting the data collected from the questionnaire administered to the respondent. The effect of industrial waste disposal and landfill practice was majorly flooding (39.6%), water pollution (23.1%) and air pollution (16.3%) which was as a result of dumping solid industrial waste indiscriminately. And that community sensitization (54.9%) is what the industries use to report the effect of their waste to the community as a way of reporting waste to the community. Due to the effects of the waste a high proportion of respondents (46.2%) migrated out of the community because of the health implication the waste has on them. Based on the findings, it is recommended, that a technically based personnel should be used to handle industrial hazardous wastes. Industries need to receive authorization from Kaduna State Protection Agency (KEPA) before disposing any hazardous waste and setting up of recycling plant within the industries to enhance recycling. 

CHAPTER ONE 
INTRODUCTION 
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY 
Solid wastes comprise all the wastes arising from human and animal activities that are normally solid, discarded as useless or unwanted. Also included are by- products of process lines or materials that may be required by law to be disposed of (Okecha 2000). Solid waste can be classified in a number of ways, on the basis of sources, environmental risks, utility and physical property. 

On the basis of source, solid wastes are again classified as: Municipal Solid Wastes, Industrial Solid Wastes and Agricultural Solid Wastes. Nigeria’s major urban centres are today fighting to clear mounting heaps of solid waste from their environments. 

These strategic centres of beauty, peace and security are being overtaken by the messy nature of over flowing dumps unattended heaps of solid wastes emanating from household or domestic or kitchen sources, markets, shopping and business centres. Solid Waste Landfills. 

City officials appear unable to combat unlawful and haphazard dumping of hazardous commercial and industrial wastes which are a clear violation of the clean Air and Health Edicts in our environmental sanitation laws, rules and regulation. Refuse generation and its likely effects on the health, quality of environment and the urban landscape have become burning national issues in Nigeria today. All stakeholders concern with the safety and the beautification of our environment have come to realise the negative consequences of uncleared solid human wastes found in residential neighbourhoods, markets, schools, and central business districts in our cities. 

These solid wastes have become recurring features in our urban environment. It is no longer in doubt that our cities are inundated with the challenges of uncleared solid wastes. As a result, urban residents are often confronted with the hazardous impact to their collective health and safety. The hue and cry over the health consequences of exposed and fermenting rubbish have not been quantified, although their impact is noticeable, especially in times of epidemic in congested activity nucleicivic centres, CBDS, neigbhourhoods, etc. 

A United Nations Report (August 2004) noted with regret that while developing countries are improving access to clean drinking water they are falling behind on sanitation goals. At one of its summit in 2000 (Uwaegbelun 2004) revealed that The World Health Organization- (WHO 2004) and United Nations International Children Education Fund- (UNICEF 2004) joint report in August 2004 that: “about 2.4 billion people will likely face the risk of needless disease and death by the target of 2015 because of bad sanitation”. 

The report also noted that bad sanitation – decaying or non-existent sewage system and toilets- fuels the spread of diseases like cholera and basic illness like diarrhea, which kills a child every 21 seconds. The hardest hit by bad sanitation is rural poor and residents of slum areas in fast-growing cities, mostly in Africa and Asia. Solid Waste Landfills. 

In spite of the enormous benefits associated with Industrial waste management strategies such as the 5Rs, only a handful of countries are able to put them into practice. For instance, most of the economically developed countries are still unable to report, restore and recycle much of their waste (Anthony, 2009). Unfortunately, many people in African countries including Nigeria, until recently, regard the concern for effective strategies for managing industrial waste as a less important issue which may distract attention from the most urgent and serious problem of achieving a fast rate of economic growth. This attitude stems in part from the belief that environmental degradation with industrial waste generation is an inevitable price of development (Salau, 1992; Chukwu, 2010). Generally, the levels of concentration of heavy metal pollutants in river kubanni is on steady increase as observed by Iguisi et al. (2001) and Ewa et al. (2004). Thus, industries contribute greatly in the pollution of the water body close to it and the environment thus posing serious toxicological risk (Udiba et al., 2012).It is on this note that this study attempts an assessment of industrial waste disposal and landfill strategies using Zaria as the spatial focus. 

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM 
Industrial waste disposal and landfill is of great importance due to lack of proper planning and management of wastes which leads to extensive pollution of surface and ground water, soil and atmosphere of surrounding environment (Vahidi, 2012). In the last decades, the uncontrollable impact of industrial waste on the natural environment has created critical ecological sustainable problems (Burritt, Hahn and Schaltegger, 2002). 

One of the major environmental problems encountered in Nigeria is industrial wastes management (Alakinde, 2013). Industrial wastes are hazardous in nature and about 80% of the industries in Nigeria discharge solid, liquid and gaseous effluent directly into the environment without prior treatment (NESREA, 2007). The solid industrial wasted is dumped on land as it constitutes environmental nuisance. Some are also disposed in the drainages which block the flow of water and this is a breeding ground of insect-vector which transmits diseases. The liquid industrial waste is emptied directly into the streams and this pollutes the water and make it unfit for drinking. Meanwhile, industrial fuels burning and production processes produce dangerous gas and dust, which when inhaled and these have certain health impacts such as morbidity caused by dizziness, vomiting, and headache including death from lead poisoning, (World Bank, 1995). 

It is a known fact that the developing countries lack the necessary information to set priorities, strategies, and action plans on environmental issues (Osibanjo, 2009). Plant- level monitoring of air, water and toxic waste emissions is at best imperfect, monitoring equipment is not available and where available is obsolete; data collection and measurement methodology are questionable, and there is usually lack of trained personnel on industrial sites (Oketola and Osibanjo, 2009). Waste abatement technologies are largely absent and the consequence is a gross pollution of natural resources and environmental media. 

Omole and Alakinde (2013) examined the influence of socio-economic factors on waste generation and disposal in Ibadan metropolis. The study which made use of questionnaires, direct interview and correlation matrix realized that waste generated in the metropolis is a reflection of variation of socio-economic factors of the people. Also, the socio-economic factors such as income, age, education, and occupation and building types have greater influence in the choice of methods of disposal in Ibadan Metropolis. Their findings showed that 65% of waste was generated by the residents, 3.3% by commercials while 17% of waste generated by the Industries. While the predominant management method of the industrial waste generated was recycling (13%) and energy recovery (4%) is the least practice. Recycling and resources recovery are implemented in Nigeria and these is quite not significant compares to many developed countries (Wilson et al., 2009) 

Ajero and Chigbo (2014) in their study on the evaluation of industrial waste disposal and landfill approaches in some industries in Aba, noted that there was inadequate provision of protective measure in most of the industry and the awareness of respondents to the consequences of improper waste disposal and landfill was high (75.50%) while the level of attendance of health and safety treatment training was average (46.25%), however, none of the industries had health policy plan. The finding shows that open dumping (46%) which is the least acceptable method superseded the others while sanitary landfill (15.1%) and burning (13.5%) ranked 2nd and3rd respectively. These finding agree with those of Olafusi (2004) and Iman et al. (2007) who reported that in most cities of Nigeria and other developing countries, the greater percentages of waste generated waste are dumped on the surface of the ground along major roads, streets and open spaces. 

The assessment of industrial waste disposal and landfill problems greatly varies depending on the nature of industry, their location and mode of disposal of waste (NESREA, 2007). Sound waste disposal and landfill cycle helps in reducing the adverse impacts on the human health and environment, while enhancing the lifestyle and developing the economic state of the country. 

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 
1. What are the type and composition of waste generated by the industries in Zaria? 

2. What are the waste disposal and landfill practices adopted by the industries the study area? 

3. What are the effects of industrial waste disposal and landfill practices on communities in the study area? 

1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY 
1. Identify the types and composition of waste generated by industries in Zaria. 

2. Examine the waste disposal and landfill practices adopted by industries in study area. 

3. Examine the effects of industrial solid practices waste disposal and landfill on communities in the study area 

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 
The study is confined to the assessment of waste disposal and landfill in Zaria industrial estate and the potential hazard it causes. In terms of spatial extent, it covered the two industrial estates of Zaria which are Dakace and Chikaji industrial estates. The industries include Sunseed Nigeria Limited, Olam Nigeria Plc., and Premier Seed and Nemacol Limited. The industries were categorized under Food and Agro- Industries. These industries were basically selected because of the typical nature of their production activities, types of raw materials used, and methods of waste disposals. The temporal scope covered the industrial waste disposal and landfill practices as at 2020. 

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 
Industrial waste disposal and landfill has become a major development challenge in Zaria in recent times. This deserves not only the attention of the waste disposal and landfill institutions but also concerns of corporate organizations and individuals to find a lasting solution to the problem. This is because, human health and resource could be lost through poor waste disposal and landfill and this will affect productivity. Careless and indiscriminate disposal of industrial waste and effluents contribute to the spread of disease such as cancer, liver and lungs failure (Environ quest, 2007). Reduction, reuse, recycle, recovery and reporting are some of the conservation means for sustainable natural resource management, including industrial waste (NESREA, 2015). This is the environmental justification for this study. Inefficient means of waste disposal has led to pollution of the environment, this result to untimely human deaths, which was estimated to about 20,000 in a year (NEMA,1998). Poor waste disposal and landfill has been found to result into pollution of both surface and ground water through the leachate draining and impairing the permeability of soils as well as blockage of drainage systems (NEMA, 1998). Studies in the Kasubi- Kawala industrial area have established that the count of harmful Coliforms (1980 cfu/ml), Eschelica coli (540 cfu/ml) in protected springs far exceed the World Health Organization (WHO) thresholds (0 cfu/ml). The study will serve as a reference point to the waste disposal and landfill institutions as far as waste disposal and landfill is concerned. Additionally, the study will contribute to existing body of knowledge on waste disposal and landfill and also stimulates further research on the subject in other State in Nigeria.

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Item Type: Project Material  |  Size: 56 pages  |  Chapters: 1-5
Format: MS Word   Delivery: Within 30Mins.
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