Problems Causing in the Area of Health and Environment Due to Inappropriate Solid Waste Management in Jalingo Metropolis, Nigeria

Abstract

This study has highlighted the serious problem of Jalingo metropolis in terms of solid waste management and its affect on health of the residents and environment. It also highlighted many attempts which are taken to solve this dangerous increasing problem. Moreover it helps to identify places for dumping municipal wastes along with the health implication.

The data for the study was sourced from a well-structured questionnaire and oral interview of the local residence in the area who are quite involve in generation and disposing of solid waste to the open dump site environment and the date obtained is presented in a simple statistics such as a simple percentage inform of tables and bar charts. The study shows that the majority of the inhabitants are really aware of the health implication of polluting environment with improper solid waste disposal and the major type of waste generated in the area are polythene bags, plastic materials, and food waste respectively. And most of these type of wastes are sourced and generated from the residential areas with their awareness of the health implications they might cause to the environment such as malaria caused by mosquitoes, cholera caused by houseflies, Lassa fever caused by infected Rats or mice and polluting the air with an unpleasant odor, all these above mentioned disease vectors require a dirty environments and as such they transmit disease to the inhabitant in the environment and these disease become most prevalent in the environment under study. It is finally recommended that proper waste collection cans be made available to the inhabitant, incinerators should be made available for burning wastes in a proper manner, good landfill be made available in a suitable locations and Governments should do more on treating waste properly and encourage recycling of waste capable of recycling such as plastics which will reduce the amount of wastes disposed in the environment.