Indiscriminate Solid Waste Dioposal in Bauchi: Causes and Impacts on the Community and the Environment

Abstract

There has been poor solid waste management in Bauchi metropolis. The paper appraised the level of indiscriminate disposal with a view to identifying the causes and the adverse effects on the community and the physical environment and make recommendations to mitigate the impacts. The study area was divided in to twelve wards and from each ward a proportionate unit of household was selected using the systematic random sampling techniques. Data were collected through purposeful questionnaire and interview and pictures were taken for on-site environmental assessment. Since there are 39,675 households in the study area, 4% of 39,675 households were taken as the sample size which is 1587 households. The study found that the area generates 286 metric tonnes daily but only 111 metric tonnes is collected for disposal. There are 205 illegal dump sites against the 89 authorised dump sites in the metropolis.  Issues like; lack of storage facilities, long distance to collection centres, poor community attitude to environmental health, availability and nearness to open spaces, weak legislation on solid waste disposal are responsible for the problems which negatively affects both the community and environment. The paper recommends an immediate joint action to evacuate the wastes already accumulated in order to restore environmental sanity in the metropolis. Then more collection centres to be provided, involvement of communities, creation of awareness on environmental health and enforcement not legislation on waste management would greatly reduce indiscriminate disposal.

Key words: solid waste, indiscriminate disposal, causes, impact

The full article is available here:

www.iiste.org/PDFshare/JEES-3-4-6.pdf