Analysis of solid waste composition and its treatment potentials in University of Nigeria Enugu State, Nigeria.

Abstract

The aim of the study is to determine the quantity, composition and treatment potentials of solid waste generated in University of Nigeria Nsukka campus. To achieve these, solid waste was sampled for 1 week from Nine (9) academic buildings, sixty-two (62) academic departments administrative offices, eight (8) corridors, and three (3) cafeterias giving a total of 82 waste sampling points. In total, 4821.1kg/week of waste were separated at University of Nigeria. The total quantity of solid waste at collection points were buildings (1034.9 kg/week), corridor (910.7 kg/week), cafeteria (502.5kg/week) and departmental offices (2373 kg/week). The mean quantities of waste generated at collection points were 114.99kg/week, 113.84kg/week, 167.57kg/week and 38.27kg/week for building, corridors, cafeteria and departmental offices respectively. This shows that on the average that the highest quantity of waste is generated from cafeteria. The weighted average amount of solid waste generated in University of Nigeria Nsukka Campus per sampling point is 58.79kg/week. The weighted average percentage of the waste fractions for university of Nigeria Nsukka Campus is 37.66%, 20.23%, 6.65%, 24.86%, 3.33% and 7.28% for paper, plastic, metal, organic, glass and others respectively. The waste fractions are generated in a decreasing order as follows: paper (37.66%), organic (24.86%), plastic (20.23%). metal (6.65%), others (7.28%) and glass (3.33%). The estimated waste generation rate for the university campus was 0.019kg/capita/day from the four sources analyzed based on current student population of 36000 and weekly generation of 4821.1kg. 28.35% of the waste is compostable while 64.49 % is recyclable and these sums up to 92.84% indicating that only a small proportion that is 7.16% of generated waste which can neither be composted or recycled will be diverted to landfill. Therefore, recovery of resources and recycling call for segregation of waste at the source, through providing separate waste containers for different waste types.