Without waste management, Nigerians are contributing to climate change, throwing money away —Prof Osibanjo

Professor Oladele Osibanjo, President, Waste Management Association of Nigeria, and one-time head of Basel Convention Coordinating Centre for Africa, in this interview with PAUL OMOROGBE, makes a case for the move from mere waste disposal to waste management in order to reduce waste disposed, create wealth, and mitigate climate change in Nigeria.

Genesis of the waste problem

Before independence the population was small. There was so much space so people could just dump things anywhere. Our population from 1960 till date has almost tripled.  Population and urbanisation are increasing very fast. So, the problem we have is that waste is being produced faster than it is being collected. Government does not recognise waste (collection) as an important public service. Waste collection is allocated very little money. By the constitution, local government is in charge of waste collection.  But what has happened is that the local government that has been given responsibility does not have the funds/resources.

So right now, less than 50 per cent of the waste is collected. We never considered waste as an issue. So, with the old areas of the city, you discover that the waste trucks cannot access those areas. Because funding for waste collection is poor, government people may just collect your waste once a week, or once in two weeks. Therefore, people just litter waste here and there.

The problem is that we are not practising waste management. What we are practising is waste disposal. Waste disposal is a mentality of what we call ‘throw-away culture,’ based on the assumption that ‘out of sight is out of mind,’ where if you don’t see the waste then it is safe.

Effects of open burning, indiscriminate waste disposal

The other problem is open burning. When you burn refuse, you create some toxic chemicals called dioxins and furans. These chemicals from burning of waste are carcinogenic. Imagine people living around where they are burning waste. They are inhaling these toxic chemicals. It is just that we have a very poor record of deaths and cause of deaths. The danger is that all these wastes we are burying and compiling, when it rains, there is leaching. The leaching may contaminate ground water. So, people who don’t treat their ground water will have a problem. Because of indiscriminate waste disposal, you find that in urban centres, most of the rivers and streams, the water is no longer drinkable, as people throw in their waste and all sorts in. This is a major problem. This connotes a drinking water scarcity problem.

When I was young we could go to the rivers and streams to fetch water to drink because the population was less and people were not dumping refuse in the streams. The danger now is that poor waste disposal is causing water shortage, access to clean water. Those who dig wells or boreholes near dump sites have their water contaminated because the waste is leaching into ground water. So, a lot of people are sick.

Many years ago, the World Bank did a study in Nigeria where they said that 60 per cent of Nigerians are at risk from water-borne diseases. A lot of people are having typhoid and other water borne diseases. These are tell-tale signs that our water quality is bad. Access to water according to the UN is a fundamental human right.

Climate change effects

Furthermore, Olusosun in Lagos, is one of the largest dump sites in Africa. Actually, Nigeria has four of the 50 largest dumpsites in the world. At the refuse dumps, micro-organisms break organic refuse down and form methane gas. Methane is a greenhouse gas. When you don’t manage your waste, you are causing climate change and global warming. At times at Olusosun, you just see fire burning. It is the methane gas that has been produced from the biodegradable waste that has accumulated and caught fire. This contributes to climate change and global warming.

Apart from dioxins and furans, when you burn waste, you are also producing carbon dioxide which is a greenhouse gas. We are causing climate change by our waste disposal.

The business opportunities

Having said that, the solution is to go from waste disposal to waste management.  What we have right now in Nigeria is waste disposal. Waste management is a chain reaction. It involves waste collection, waste transportation, and segregation.  You store the waste and segregate it into different components. Most of our municipal solid waste contains organic compounds that are bio-degradable: the food and plant waste. All these can be converted into manure.

There are two types of waste: General waste that does not cause harm to humans. These are things like leftover food, paper and the rest. These are organic in nature and are bio-degradable. About 60 per cent of our waste are bio-degradable.

Then, you also have inert things that will not burn. These include scrap metal, glass and the like. In developed countries, they have bins for different classes of waste. By law, you must have a container for glass, another for plastic, another for metal. All these are marketable products. All our youths who have been looking for job can make money out of waste if they are enlightened.

All the toilet rolls we are using are from old newspapers. There is a company in Lagos that even imports waste (paper) from outside Nigeria, because the (waste) paper here is not enough.

There are people that buy broken bottles and sell to the people that make bottles; the same thing with plastic, polyethene sachets. At Aleshinloye, Ibadan, there are a lot of companies making “pure water” sachets from old plastic. So, when you throw away waste, you are throwing away money, because some people will collect it to go and sell.

Scrap metal is big business. There are lot of scrap collectors with wheelbarrows going around. I was surprised that at Alaba market, Lagos, some years ago, one Hausa young man had over 200 waste collectors working for him. He is a very rich man; because these ‘burglary-proof’ and metal doors they are making come from scrap metal. This is an opportunity.

Creating a circular economy

Why do we dispose waste? It is because we have not discovered the economic value of waste. In civilised countries they ask how much money can I get from waste? In a circular economy, you don’t lose anything. You want to find out how it can be turned into a useful product.

Refuse generation in Nigeria is beyond the capacity of local governments and even state governments because they don’t have the resources or the infrastructure. They don’t have the equipment, well-trained personnel who can manage all these things.

Also, there are no landfills. In the developed countries until recently, what they do is landfills. What is that? They will dig a pit, put special plastic at the bottom of the pit before they start dumping waste into it. And when they have put waste, they cover it with sand and grade it, and make sure there is no odour.

Another problem is that we practise crude disposal of general and hazardous waste, even in hospitals. According to the UN, hospital waste is hazardous waste, but everything is thrown into the refuse dump.  This is dangerous.

The solution is to recognise waste a resource with economic value. This is done by practising waste management. When you do this, there will be less waste to throw away.

The public lacks understanding of waste. The UN has what they call Polluter Pays Principle. If you pollute, you pay. Why should people believe that government should pay for their waste collection? Our people see waste collection as a social service which is wrong.

Let me also say that people in government lack the knowledge and scientific expertise how to manage waste properly. There is a science to waste management.