Abstract
This paper describes a research project that has been conducted as part of the Kano Municipal waste management strategy. The aim is to quantify and to identify the existing locations of waste disposal sites by mapping their spatial distribution within the metropolitan Kano. QUICKBIRD satellite imageries; locations of existing waste disposal sites collected using Global Positioning System (GPS); and topographical map (1:5000 scale) of Kano metropolis were used to generate data for the study. The data were prepared and analysed using ArcMap 10.2.1 and Erdas Imagine 11 software to produce the spatial distribution maps for solid waste disposal sites within the metropolis. The result shows that out of the 300 existing waste disposal sites assessed, the city has fairly well-distributed waste disposal sites. Conversely, the disposal sites are more clustered in the centre of the metropolis than the outskirts. However, about 80 percent of the sites are either located very close to roads, settlements or water bodies. Also, while about 92 percent of the existing waste disposal locations are open space, only about 7 percent are containers (closed dumping sites). Correspondingly, about 89 percent are authorised dumping sites and only about 11 percent are unauthorised illegal. The study recommends that policymakers should intervene and relocate the existing unauthorized dump sites to more suitable areas.
Highlights
The findings of this study identified that about 93 percent of the 300 existing waste disposal sites investigated are open space dumping and only about 7% are collected in a container
The results of the study have shown that most of the waste disposal sites are not properly located because much consideration is not given to the environment and social implications of the current trend
It has been noted that the distribution of solid waste disposal sites is related to the number of economic activities present in a particular area
Summary
Among all the wastes (solid, liquid and gas), solid waste is the most popular and most difficult to manage locally This is because solid waste does not flow, evaporate, diffuse, dissolve or absorbed into the surrounding, unlike liquid and gaseous wastes [5]. This is why Singh et al [6] suggested that the management of solid waste should include waste generation, on-site handling, storage and processing, collection, transport, sorting and recycling, treatment and reuse as well as disposal options. Solid waste management refers to the supervised handling of waste material from generation at source through the recovery processes to disposal. The open dump sites waste is usually burnt and disposed of in the open air, and sometimes scavengers are seen around the dump sites collecting paper, plastic and tin [19]
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