Solid Waste Disposal and Wealth Generation in Parts of Kaduna Metropolis, Nigeria

Abstract

Solid waste disposal management presents problems in Kaduna metropolis which are linked with economic development, population growth and the inability of Kaduna State Environmental Protection Agency to manage the resulting rise in industrial and domestic waste in the study area. It is on this premise that the researcher was motivated to carry out a study on the topic under the review with a view of finding out the situation in Kaduna metropolis, Nigeria. The aim of the research is to evaluate the generation, disposal and wealth generation practices of solid waste in some part of Kaduna metropolis, Kaduna State, Nigeria. The method of data collection include questionnaire and field survey and method of data analysis were arithmetic mean, frequency percentage, standard deviation and analysis of variance. The finding shows that Tudun Nufawa ranked the highest in sources of solid waste with 82 (23.6%) of the respondents, Sabon-Tasha ranked second with 79 (22.8%) of the respondents, Panteka ranked third with 70 (20.2%) of the respondents, Narahi ranked fourth with 61 (17.6%) of the respondents and Kakuri ranked the least with 55 (15.2%) of the respondents in the study area. The result shows that 166 (47.8%) of the respondents uses indiscriminate open dumping alone as their way of disposing solid waste while 181 (52.2%) of the respondents uses more than one disposal mechanism which include backyard burying, waste burning and indiscriminate open dumping. The finding shows that highly aware of wealth generation from solid waste disposed ranked the highest with 226 (65.1%) of the respondents, aware ranked second with 102 (29.4%) of the respondents and not aware ranked the least with 19 (5.5%) of the respondents. The result shows that Panteka ranked the highest in term of encouragement of more buying and selling of end of waste resources with 37 (10.7%) of the respondents and Tudun Nufawa ranked the least with 12 (3.5%) of the respondents. With regard to non encouragement of more buying and selling of end of waste resources, Tudun Nufawa ranked the highest with 69 (19.9%) of the respondents and Kakuri ranked the least with 23 (6.6%) of the respondents. It is therefore recommended that Kaduna State Government should come in to harness the abundant manpower of the scavengers/waste pickers by providing safety complaint wears and working instrument to make the working environment safer and encouraging for the participation of youths thereby creating employment.