A sustainable approach to Municipal Solid Waste management in Southern Nigeria

Municipal Solid Wastes in most towns and cities in Nigeria are disposed in open dumps or ravines which are only a few meters away from major streets and residential areas, and in other cases are dumped into drainages which eventually flows into adjoining streams which serves as a source of water supply to the resident of such locality. This unscientific and unregulated disposal pattern causes severe environmental and public health hazards. This study examines a sustainable approach to municipal solid waste (MSW) management in Southern Nigeria and recommends proven methods of MSW management. The benefit of using MSW to generate electricity is also explored. It is seen that proper waste management has the potential benefit of greatly reducing incidences of morbidity caused by indiscriminate waste disposal in such areas and can contribute to solving the energy need of the affected communities were the waste are disposed. On the whole, proper MSW management would not only improve the air quality and minimize the associated health hazards which people residing and working in such area are subjected to, but would also reduce the rate at which green house gases and other poisonous gases which contributes to global warming are emitted into the atmosphere. The study indicates that from a daily delivery of 2,714 tons of waste in just one city, about 30 to 52 MWh of electricity can be generated. The study recommends a sustainable approach to MSW handling and the incorporation of waste incinerators with energy recovery at dump sites to effectively transform the inherent energy in MSW to electricity.