Waste Disposal and Landfill: Potential Hazards
CHAPTER ONE
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
- Identify the types and composition of waste generated by industries in Zaria.
- Examine the waste disposal and landfill practices adopted by industries in study area.
- Examine the effects of industrial solid practices waste disposal and landfill on communities in the study area.
CHAPTER TWO
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW
CONCEPTUAL ISSUES
Waste
A quick look at the definitions of waste in media and printed documents reveal that waste is considered an unwanted good that is no longer useful or desirable. Citing Udocha and Uchegbu (2002), defined waste as those materials which are generated as a result of normal operations over which we have control in terms of their production, disposal or discharge. Waste could be seen as any substance or object which the producer or holder discards or intends or is required to discard.
Gilpin (1996) provides a more elaborate definition of the term waste. According to him, the concept of waste embraces “all unwanted and economically unusable by-products or residuals at any given place and time, and any other matter that may be discarded accidentally or otherwise into the environment” (Gilpin, 1996). Gilpinal so suggests that what constitutes waste must “occur in such a volume, concentration, constituency or manner as to cause a significant alteration in the environment”. Thus, apart from waste being an unwanted substance that is discarded, the amount of it and the impact it makes on the environment also become important considerations in defining waste.
McLaren (1993) also referred to waste as “unwanted materials arising entirely from human activities which are discarded into the environment”. This notion that waste results entirely from human activities is corroborated by Jessen (2002) who has noted that “waste is human creation” and “there is no such thing as waste in nature where cut-offs of one species become food for another”. On his part, Palmer argues that, “there is no constellation of properties inherent in any lump, object or material which will serve to identify it as waste … an item becomes waste when the holder or owner does not wish to take
further responsibility for it”. As a default definition, Palmer (1998) suggests that “any substance that is without an owner is waste”. Davies (2008) also describes wastes as:
“…unwanted or unusable materials … that emanate from numerous sources from industry and agriculture as well as businesses and households … and can be liquid, solid or gaseous in nature, and hazardous or non-hazardous depending on its location and concentration” (Davies, 2008:4)
There are basically seven categories of waste namely residential, commercial/municipal, industrial, open areas, treatment plant sites, agricultural waste (Tchobanoglous, 1993). But for the purpose of the study, the focus is on industrial waste.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research Design
In defining research design, Odo (1992:43), stated that research design implies outlining the name of equipment and other materials the research intends using, applying some to successfully execute the practical aspect of the research study.
A descriptive survey method was used for this study. It is important to determine the method and procedure adopted in this research report since it gives the reader background information on how to evaluate the findings and conclusion.
Population Of The Study
The researcher has chosen Zaria industrial estate in Kaduna as the studied population in order to find a possible solution to which involve all the residents of the estate.
Sample And Sampling Procedures
Sample size of 400 was selected using the stratified sampling method. The choice of this sampling procedure was because it has no personal bias and it is scientific and objective. Under this method, the researcher categorized the residents in the estate.
The raw data from the field survey was entered into Microsoft Excel office 2010 XP-intergraded and the results and its analyses are presented in chapter four (4) of this work.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
TYPE AND COMPOSITION OF INDUSTRIAL WASTE DISPOSAL AND LANDFILL PRACTICE
The types and compositions of waste generated by the industries per month from January, 2020 to December, 2020 are shown in Table 4.2
The finding of the study showed that Sunseed Nigeria Limited (68.2%) generated the highest proportion of waste which includes impurities, trash, refuse, firewood scale, soap stock and this was followed by Premier Seed Limited (17.9%) as shown in Table 4.2. The study agreed with Iguisi et al (2001); Butu and Ati (2013) who traced the sources of these chemical elements such as europium, manganese, arsenic, zinc and copper into Kubanni dam in Zaria that is used for domestic purposes as the waste emptied into the water bodies from the industries and the ones dump on open land. It is therefore not over assumption to observe that water sources for human consumption are exposed to this similar threats.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
The study revealed that the major waste produced by the industries in the study area was gaseous waste, cotton wastes, ash, spent earth, soap stock, organic and liquid waste. The study notes that Sunseed (68.2%) is one of the industries that generate the largest amount of waste produce every month. These include liquid sludge which is highly acidic and affect lands and humans, soap stock, organic waste, spent earth, gaseous waste and firewood scales. Most of the wastes produced employed source reduction, reused, and recycled as the waste disposal and landfill practices the industry adopts, while Olams Nigeria limited (8.0%) produced mote and trash every month. The industrial practices for managing waste is reuse and source reduction. Premier seed with a percentage of (17.9%) adopts source reduction, reused and recovery used to manage impurities, chemical water, chemical container, empty bags and dusts they produced.
Less processing and manufacturing activities is taking place in Nalmaco as these characterized the little amount of waste produced. The waste includes chaff, dust, empty container and broken kernels with (6.0%) every month. The industry carried out waste reused and recycled. The survey indicates that most of the industries carried out community sensitization (54.9%) as a way of reporting their waste because of lack of transparency in their industrial operation in Zaria due to hazardous waste (78.15%) generated by majority of the industries and causes harm to human and the environment.
The study revealed that Sunseed Nigeria limited 3.67 has the highest compliance level as they followed strictly the guidelines. This shows that the industries produce less toxic waste into the environment more than what is made public. This was followed by Olam Nigeria limited with a compliance value of 3.58. The industry with the least compliance level was Premier seed Nigeria limited and this is due to lack of proper industrial monitoring and adherence to the FEPA Act.
It also emerged that most of the industries uses open dumping (48.4%) to dispose their waste. And only few of them dispose their waste through landfill (19.2%) and incineration (19.2%). The disposal sites had no internal access and are sited near residential area or settlement. Industrial dump site in Zaria are not designated and the environmental implications as revealed by the study are that waste are indiscriminately disposed create unsanitary outlook and other effects like environmental degradation, air pollution, outbreak of diseases like diarrhea, cholera etc and that landfill which is the only means of disposal are very close to residential areas and are not properly managed.
The study also noted that community sensitization (54.9%) is the reporting techniques most of the industries used to report the effect of waste. However, only few of the industries uses internet (16.5%) and radiobroadcast (12.6%) to report the effect of their waste. However the lack of reporting techniques that covers a wide range of populace is not practice within the industries in Zaria.
The study revealed that there are several effects caused by improper disposal of waste in Dambo and Dakace ward ranges from flooding (39.65%), which is the major effect to disease out-break, destroyed environmental aesthetic, unfit water for drinking and reduces soil fertility.
CONCLUSION
By adopting the wealth aspect from waste or treating industrial wastes as resources, in terms of waste disposal and landfill practices has effectively become not only a service but an instrument for ensuring a good healthy environment for all.
The findings of the study reveal that the types of waste generated by industries in the study area were ash waste, cotton, organic waste, smoke, liquid water soap stock, spent earth. Also the composition of industrial wastes includes metal, oil, grease, bacterial and cyanide. Most of these wastes are hazardous 78.15% in nature and poses serious danger to human health and the environment.
Sunseed Nigeria limited 3.67 has the highest compliance level as they foll owed strictly the guidelines outline by FEPA. That source reduction 37.9% and recycling 36.3% are the waste disposal and landfill practices adopted by the industries in Zaria.
This shows that there is a cause and effect relationship between proper industrial waste disposal and landfill and people’s health conditions and environment. It is when industrial wastes are efficiently handled, that the environment becomes pristine, friendly and protected from diseases. This calls for a synergy between government, private sector, groups, individuals and the media.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the findings, recommendations were developed to promote industrial waste disposal and landfill in Zaria industrial estate and they include:
The type of waste produce by industries should be separated from other sections and handled by technically-biased personnel to avoid overlap of functions which leads to inefficiency. A holistic and industry-focused approach in empowering the industries to make choices for their waste management should be the key focused of intervention. Within this framework, the collaboration of all stakeholders such as company and allied matter, government agencies such as the ministries of trade, labour and state security and Manufacturing Association of Nigeria to dialogue and design policies and regulations that will create a strong waste department with the expertise to management hazardous waste by the use of scientific techniques develop for dealing with industrial waste disposal and landfill. This will encourage the emergences and development of industrial ecology where wastes from one activity are input of raw materials for another activity.
Enforcement of compliance standard should be pursued by KEPA. The results from this study have indicated that waste disposal and landfill from the industries compliance level is inadequate. The situation is worst among small scale industries. Industries need to be responsible to follow the national waste standard management level. The small and large scale industries in Zaria should be required to seek authorization from Kaduna State Environmental Protection agency before disposing harmful waste under relevant rules; equally the agency should be committed in enforcing the relevant rules. Towards this, law should be promulgated to tax the industries that violated these rules. The tax will help offset the environmental damage by going towards environmental restoration, protection and spreading information to increase knowledge on these issues. It is possible that through the efforts of KEPA and industries, a mechanism could be evolved for better management. The industries should be made to undertake the detailed risk assessment of the waste.
Produce and implement an integrated industrial management plan with the relevant stakeholders. A policy should be formulated based on reduce, reuse, recycle recover and reporting by the industries. Companies are expected to improve their waste and environmental performance and efficiency on a regular basis. Segregation should be done at the point of waste generation and can be achieved through proper training, cleaning standard and tough enforcement. Industrial waste should be collected and transported in safe containers. The open dump site should be closed and municipal should work in conjunction with the industrial sector towards development of specific sanitary landfill for the treatment and disposal of waste. Facility should be installed to extract gas which can be burnt to generate the needed electricity in Zaria.
Personnel handling wastes of the industries should be made to wear appropriate protective clothing by government environmental protection agency. Mechanical methods for handling waste should be adopted where machine are used to collect the waste for disposal instead by the use of hand. Also, the waste department of the industries should be educated about the dangers of manual handling of hazardous waste. When there is a pollution that affects the community, industries should be made to pay the affected people as a way of compensation and protect the community from further reoccurrence. There should be a synergy between the industrial management and the community Head to organize programmes to educate the people and provides incentive as a way of corporate social responsibility.
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