CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Human environment needs to be kept clean. The 7th goal of the Millennium Development is to ensure clean environmental sustainability. The pursuit of environmental sustainability is an essential part of human well-being as identified by the United Nations Environmental Programmed (Abankwa, 2004). However, waste generation is an inevitable phenomenon so long as man is in existence. The condition and rate of waste generation in the developed and developing countries are quite different. Although, the developed countries generate more wastes than the developing ones due to extraction from the manufacturing process, they have competent government institutions and facilities to handle their wastes (Abrokwah, 2001). The developing countries on the other hand are market-oriented. They have not acquired the needed (high) technology to enable them attain full grasp of coping with the huge challenges associated with effective waste disposal. This situation has led to great degradation of the environment resulting in several health problems (Adesiyan, and Leite, 2007). Waste means any garbage, refuse, sludge from a waste water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control facility and other discarded materials including solid, liquid, semi-solid, or contained gaseous material, resulting from industrial, commercial, mining and agricultural operations, and from community activities source (Adewumi and Adepetu, 2005).
For clarity, in a research conducted by (Adetola, 2010), in his study of Calabar town he identified different types of solid waste disposal ranging from garbage, rubbish, medical wastes, bulk wastes, street wastes, animal wastes, construction/demolition wastes and special wastes
Wastes can be categorized in four forms: Solid, liquid, semi- solid and gaseous waste.
Solid waste disposal constitutes one of the environmental concerns local, regional and national. The desire for improved conditions of life, economic growth, employment opportunities, better housing and other requirements of an improved standard of living believed to be available in cities leads to rural-urban drift and consequently urban population concentration (Adewumi, 2010). Something can become a waste when it is no longer useful to the owner or it is uses has fails to fulfill its purpose (Agunwamba, 2002). Solid waste according to (Miller, 2000) is any useless, unwanted, or discarded material that is not liquid or gas. A great mixture of substances including the dust, metal, glass, paper and cardboard, textile, vegetable materials and plastic characterize solid waste (Ajani, 2007). The third world having refused to be the “dustbin” of the western world also lacks appropriate facilities treatment technologies and good method of disposal of waste.