Despite the heat occasioned by hot weather and the blackout in the part of Igando where he resides, on Wednesday, April 12, 2023, Ene Osu (not real name) 40, his wife, and three children decided to endure the discomfort of the heat and remained indoors. This has been their custom whenever the weather is hot and there is a power outage. They cannot afford the luxury of staying on their balcony to get some fresh air like most residents of areas far from the Igando dumpsite. The reason Osu and his family would always remain indoors no matter the heat is the stench oozing out of the Igando dumpsite.
Ene told , “It has not been easy here. We suffer a lot because of this dumpsite. The odour is worse towards evening, especially during the rainy season. We are forced to stay indoors even when there is heat because of the foul from the dumpsite.”
The dumpsite is close to their building at Odubanjo Street, where they have been living for years now.
Although Osu has devised means of avoiding the foul odour from the dumpsite, he still has to contend with rodents, which invade his residence from there. According to him, residents of the area always cover foodstuffs and anytime they fail to properly cover them, they lose them to rodents.
“We are also disturbed by rodents. Sometimes, we find them inside our pots, especially whenever we forget to close them properly,” he further explained.
Another adverse impact of the Igando waste dump on the neighbourhood is the contamination of its water source. Water from the boreholes and wells of houses close to the garbage site is not drinkable. Many residents of the area buy drinkable water.
Mr Benjamin Anubueze, who lives close to the dumpsite, said, “One of the challenges we are having in this area is that the water is bad and not fit for human consumption. The few boreholes that have water that is manageable are those that have been sunk before the dumpsite was opened. We have only one place where almost everyone who lives in this area fetches water. They are the only place with good drinking water.”
“We also have serious challenges with mosquitoes, rodents, and reptiles, as they are much here. We are begging the government to come and fumigate the area so that we can live healthy devoid of mosquitoes and other reptiles,” his brother, Chibueze Akubueze, said.
A medical practitioner who lives in the area, Mrs Chinwendu Okeukwu, also corroborated the Akubuezes. She said, “The major challenge here is the water. The water is very brownish and it has odour. Even the people who live farther from the dumpsite are having challenges with drinkable water. There water is not good for drinking.
“You can’t use the water to cook or even bathe. We use it to flush the toilet and it has changed the colour of the water closets. We have to trek to a distant place to get water to cook and do other things. We need the intervention of the government in terms of drinkable.”
According to Okeukwu, swarms of flies pose another challenge in the Igando area. “Flies are all over the place, because of the dumpsite. We are also having serious challenges with mosquitoes and reptiles,” she complained
The Igando dumpsite is the second largest in Nigeria and occupies about eight hectares of land, according to a consulting firm with expertise in waste-to-energy and biomass energy, Bioenergy Consult.
When our correspondent visited the Igando community, which houses one of the largest general hospitals in Lagos State, Alimosho General Hospital, one of the first things he noticed was the offensive odour in the area, despite being some metres away from the dumpsite.
There are fears that it may get worse as more people continue to troop to Lagos, the commercial nerve centre of the country, in search of greener pasture.
The World Bank predicted in 2018 that as nations and cities urbanise, develop economically, and grow in terms of population, waste generation would increase from 2.01 billion tonnes in 2016 to 3.40 billion tonnes in 2050. It stated that at least 33 per cent of those wastes are mismanaged globally through open dumping or burning.
In 2022, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation report stated that Nigeria generated over 32 million tonnes of waste annually with plastic accounting for 2.5 million tonnes.
According to the report, Nigeria is among the top 20 nations that contribute 83 per cent of the total volume of land-based plastic waste that ends up in the oceans.
Also, a World Bank report estimated that at 0.51 kilograms of waste generated daily by each Nigerian would rise to 107 million tonnes by 2050, a development that presents both a threat and an opportunity.
To address the challenge of plastic waste in the country, last year, the Federal Ministry of Environment, the Embassy of Japan in Nigeria, and UNIDO signed a $2.8m agreement to support government efforts to develop sustainable plastic waste management through the promotion of circular economy practices. The impact of the agreement seems not to be seen as plastic waste still litters many parts of the country.
For an environmentalist and co-founder of Eko Village Environmental Technologies, a waste resource company in Lagos, Dr Femi Adegoke, the stench from the dumpsite is very hazardous and unhealthy for humans.
“The truth is that the stench from a dump site is very hazardous and it is not good for human emission. And the indiscriminate and open dumping of waste affects climate change. When you dump all these organic and inorganic waste mixed, that is why you have these entire stenches coming out. The gases they emit over time rise and deplete the ozone layer. It has a very huge negative impact on climate change as well apart from the environmental direct pollution to human health,” he explained.
According to Adegoke, who is also the president of the Lagos Recyclers Association, it is very dangerous to have a dumpsite in a community where people are living.
He believed that there was a need for behavioural and attitudinal change by Nigerians towards waste disposal.
“You are supposed to inhale clean oxygen. When you are inhaling gases that you don’t need, they endanger your health. So, it is very dangerous to live in a community very close to a dumpsite. And that is why we always advocate for behavioural and attitudinal change towards waste management.
“The wastes there were dumped by human beings. They were dumped by residents. They are the ones dumping the waste. That is why they are supposed to have a bin in front of their houses, where they can put their waste and lock it up. Waste collectors will come and collect them. At least if the people do their part, it will be left for the waste management companies to come and carry the waste. But if people dump waste carelessly, as a community, they are already causing problems for themselves. We need to have our waste containerised,” Adegoke enunciated.
However, he argued the government could convert the gases emitted from the dumpsites into something useful. According to the environmentalist, the gases if properly captured can be used to generate electricity, which will go a long way to boost the country’s power generation.
He noted, “There are lots we can gain from waste because I always tell myself that waste is not waste until it is completely wasted. The methane gas, if it is properly captured, can use it for electricity. But because we are leaving it in the open, it is dangerous to the atmosphere and it is causing environmental pollution. It is causing climate degradation. But if we can have a proper dumping site, and the recyclables are used, we will earn from it.”
Adegoke said the country should take a cue from China which is making good use of its waste through recycling.
“Recycling in China is a big industry. We can get fertilizer and compost and we can even get biogas, and cooking gas from our organic waste. So, we need to have what I call an integrated sustainable waste management system and it must start with attitudinal change. We should not see waste as a waste. We should see waste as a resource. And if it is a resource, it has a value,” he concluded.
A Consultant Cardiologist with the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Prof Augustine Odili, said having dumpsites close to residential areas brings about rodents, which may in turn cause some deadly sicknesses.
“When you put those dump sites around where people live, you are likely to bring rodents such as rats very close to homes. And these rodents can also become a medium for transmission of infections such as Lassa fever.
“These rodents, in a bid to take what is in those dumpsites, find their way into homes and then get into food that is kept at home. And that could be a medium for Lassa fever. Secondly, it is a form of pollutio, andd it affects our respiratory system and our cardiovascular system. So, individuals who are prone to some respiratory challenges will be more susceptible to some of these challenges. And even in the long run, it affects the cardiovascular system.
“By the time you try to burn them down as a way of disposing of it, you worsen the pollution in the air and the effect of these things on the cardiovascular system and the respiratory system,” he explained.
According Odili, who is also the president of the Nigerian Cardiac Society, waste management is a very complicated thing and there must be a deliberate waste management system. “You cannot handle these without a proper waste management system because waste is generated as long as you have a human being around. So, the system must be deliberate and planned appropriately.”
He mentioned that one of the major challenges the country was struggling with was the issue of segregation of waste at the dumping site. “The plans should be to segregate these wastes at home. In a well-coordinated city, when you come to an average home, you will see three bags: one for plastics, one for bottles, and the other for normal dirt. So, these things can be collected separately. The green can be used for manure and these other ones can be recycled,” Odili added.
Meanwhile, the South West Zone Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association, Babatunde Rosiji, described dumpsites as an environmental injustice to the people living in those areas.
“I will describe the issue of dump sites as an environmental injustice to the poor people living in rural areas. That means you won’t see the rich like governors and senators, among others, living near dumpsites. But the unfortunate middle- and low-income earners, who found their way into the rural areas, are the ones that suffer this. And then some health conditions have also been associated with the issue of dump sites,” he averred.
According to Rosiji, dumpsite has the potential to contaminate the underground water in the area where it is located, adding that it has a long-term effect on people living in those areas.
“There is what we call latches. They are substances that leak into the underground system. There are some of those latches that are carcinogenic and that also has long-term effects on people in areas that have dumpsites,” he continued.
He also said living around dumpsites had the possibility of affecting one’s psyche. “Let us also leave the contamination of the underground water. The immediate environmental nuisance for the people who live around that area is the issue of air pollution that we talked about. And when we talk about air pollution, the resultant effect comes in different ways. One is that it constitutes a nuisance to the people that are inhaling it. You will feel unhealthy. So, it will affect your psyche.”
Those dumpsites, according to Rosiji, would likely lead to the preponderant of germs around such areas.
He added that people living in such areas had the possibility of having respiratory tract infections. “The other thing is the preponderant of germs around such areas. Research has shown that these people are exposed to upper respiratory tract infections, and they are predisposed to high irritations and many other skin conditions.
“In addition to these, we know that rodents are too much in areas where we have dumpsites. And we know that there are some diseases that these pests will serve as parasites. So, some of these rodents can have both direct and indirect health consequences on people living around those areas,” Rosiji maintained.
He further noted that the impact of the fumes and gases that come out of the dumpsite could be dangerous. “We know that gases like carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide come out from these areas and some of these gases have been traced to respiratory infections. And even in some instances, respiratory cancers. So, we can now see that living in an area with a dumpsite is not suitable for one’s health.
“And our government is not looking at that direction because it seems to be cheaper to manage not minding the health conditions it poses for the people. Unfortunately, if you are inside the e General Hospital, you will not be conscious of the fact that there is a nearby dumpsite. By the time you are getting close to the General Hospital, the odour is already diluted. But when we now talk about the resultant effect, I think it also depends on the terrain and topography of that place.
“When we talked about the contamination of underground water, there is a need to take samples from the water around that region both uphill and downhill of that dumpsite and then run toxicology and microbiology tests on it,” he explained.
According to the medical practitioner, though people having boreholes near dumpsites may argue that many of the micro germs may have been filtered out because of the multiple layers of filtration in deep well-boreholes, research has shown that diarrhea diseases are very common around areas where dumpsites have. “So, it will be a good idea to culture the boreholes and to run a toxicology screen on the underground water sample in areas close to dumpsites, to be sure we are not endangering the lives of the people there,” he suggested.
A laboratory scientist who lives around Igando dumpsite, Mr Uzonna Chinaka, said it posed a serious threat to the environment.
“Soil, water, and air pollution can all be a result of improper waste disposal and occur when either of them becomes contaminated with hazardous materials. Not only does this contribute to the creation of greenhouse gases but also causes significant harm to aquatic life, living organisms in the soil, and wildlife. The value of property diminishes continually with the illegal dumping of refuse. Besides, land or locations that have been turned into illegal dumpsites can serve as magnets for criminal activities,” he noted.
Chinaka’s wife, Doreen, who is a nurse, told that the illegally dumped materials contain toxic substances, sharp objects, diapers, contaminated medical waste, asbestos, and tires, etc., which posed serious health and safety risks to children who may pick, eat, or play around them.
She raised the alarm that the high level of land, water, and air pollution resulting in such wrong environmental practices was on the rise along Igando/LASU Road.
“At the moment, it is so bad to the point that the residents have been complaining bitterly. The wrong and irregular dumping of refuse along the Igando/LASU Road has become very unbearable.
“You hardly have a patient visit the hospital without complaining about the odour emanating from the huge refuse dumps in the area,” she stated.
According to her, such environmentally hazardous practices should never be allowed to continue just within the human residence.
“On the other hand, it will be pertinent that the Lagos State Government ensure that such practices that can affect the health of the community are properly controlled or avoided completely,” she advised.
Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, Mrs Bola Ajao, told that government officials had visited the Igando dumpsite and had concluded plans for a more comprehensive appraisal of the situation in order to take action.
“LASEPA was there and will get an update on their visit. There is still a need for harmonised team of the agency, with other relevant stakeholders so that samples can be collected in respect of the contamination you mentioned.
“Our team visited as promised and pictures were taken as evidence of their visit. So, an inclusive investigation is ongoing and you will be carried along, please. The agency is looking forward to having a harmonised visit, consisting of laboratory services, electronic/electrical waste, and land and water pollution departments, to make the next move.
“The agency visited the site as promised, took photographs, and also spoke with residents of the area. It was proposed that there would be a revisit to the site, consisting of laboratory, e-waste, land, and water pollution depth for a more comprehensive appraisal of the situation and actions to take please,” she explained.
was unable to get a response from the Public Relations Officer of the Lagos State Waste Management Authority, Mr Sade Quadri, as he did not respond to our correspondent’s text messages or pick-up calls, as of the time of filing this report.
