06 Mar 2009 |
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Waste management as a source of wealth By Levi Obijiofor Friday, 6 March 2009 In a poignant letter to the Editor of The Guardian (Tuesday, 3 March 2009), Remi Oyeyemi asked: “What would make an educated man, in a suit, buy cooked corn on the roadside and throw the cob out of the window of a moving vehicle when he is done?” That behaviour is indicative of the level of contempt we have for public health and our environment. Oyeyemi’s question raises a number of issues: improper waste disposal habit by the educated class; poor level of public sanitation; and failure of the education system to raise our consciousness about, and attitude toward, the environment. The educated man who lobs a cob of corn into the street corner is unconcerned about the impact of his action on public health and the environment. The same attitude defines the behaviour of a woman or man who defecates and urinates by the roadside on the assumption that if no one could see them, it must be okay to answer the call of nature anywhere and at anytime. It is this disregard for the sanctity of public health and our contempt for our environment that characterises the quality of life we live. In his letter, Oyeyemi referred to lack of proper waste disposal etiquette among Lagos residents. “Most Lagosians have a very bad sense of hygiene and it is one of the most difficult problems of the state. Filthy roads, gutters and canals blocked with papers, bottles, cans, polythene bags and the ever-popular pure water nylons, all these attest to the fact that Lagosians need to be cautioned.” But it is not only Lagos residents who bear the mark of appalling attitude to waste disposal. It is also a common practice in Nigeria. The magnitude of public health problems in Nigeria is evident from the heaps of filth on which we sit and eat and do business. Our city streets, our backyards, our living rooms, our hospitals, our restaurants and our so-called five-star hotels are marked with little pyramids of filth, including industrial effluents. It is amazing how we share our territory with outrageous heaps of garbage and waste matter and still maintain good health. Is there something special in the Nigerian that boosts his/her resistance to diseases that emanate from dirty environment? Mercifully, someone is trying to do something to rouse our awareness about the dangers of improper waste management and to draw our attention to available solutions. Nigeria’s first waste management promotion seminar is scheduled to take place in Sydney, Australia, on 22 April 2009. An initiative of Frank Aneke, a young Nigerian business entrepreneur resident in Australia, the seminar aims to raise public awareness about environmentally friendly strategies and economically profitable ways of managing human and industrial wastes. The seminar, entitled “Nigeria’s Waste: Your Wealth”, also holds the potential to overturn our culture of poor waste management practices, attitudes and routines. There is of course a stinging irony in the title of the seminar. First, Nigeria’s waste has become the source of wealth for another country. Second, it took the inventiveness of a Nigerian in Sydney to alert Nigerian officials to possible ways of disposing and marketing human and industrial wastes, something that is comparable to converting our waste into gold through the use of cutting edge technology. As Aneke pointed out, the seminar is designed “to present Nigerian state governments and private sector with maiden opportunity to promote investment opportunities in their waste management sector directly to a target audience of potential investors from Australian small, medium and large environmental management companies with interest in Nigeria.” This is evidently why the seminar, jointly sponsored by Frank Aneke’s OctoberFirst Consulting Sydney, the Waste Management Association of Australia (WMAA) and the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), ought to attract the interest of Nigerian environmental officials, activists, industry leaders in public and private sectors, as well as government departments at state and federal levels. Human and industrial wastes are not only toxic but they are also in the league of silent killers. We ignore proper strategies for waste management to our own detriment. An editorial in the Punch online edition of Sunday, March 1, 2009, noted quite rightly that Nigeria “has now become a big dumping ground for all manner of items -- from used clothes and cars to second-hand televisions, refrigerators and computers. Some of these items that are not serviceable are further disposed of in waste dumps where they could pose a pollution threat to the environment and people”. Improper waste disposal is tellingly harmful to human health and the environment. As the Punch editorial of last Sunday observed, “In Nigeria, the commonest way of disposal of unserviceable items is to set them on fire. This could lead to the escape of dioxins into the atmosphere. Dioxins are carcinogenic and are capable of causing endocrine disruptions. Other chemical contents could percolate into the soil and contaminate sources of water supply and edible plants.” Waste management is not a subject that many of us want to talk about because of the perception that it is a waste of our time. But proper waste management is fundamental to human survival, in particular survival from the ruinous impacts of climate change. How we manage our environment, including the waste from human and industrial activities, is indicative of the quality of life we have fashioned for ourselves. A society that chooses to eat, drink and live in the midst of grime and waste dump is literally sick. The enormity of the problem of improper waste disposal is such that caution alone can’t change our behaviour. Neither would the use of force. Perhaps a sustained campaign of public education can. But coercion is never an effective means of achieving and sustaining attitude change over a long period of time. Once the instrument of coercion disappears, the newly acquired habits would be discarded. Look at what happened to the War Against Indiscipline (WAI), a public crusade against indiscipline, introduced and strictly enforced by the combined dictatorship of Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon between 1984 and 1985 – the period they ruled as Head of State and Chief of Staff (Supreme Headquarters) respectively. For the period the WAI campaign lasted, orderly conduct flowed through our blood vessels. Many Nigerians turned on their best behaviour not because they loved the new rules but simply because they dreaded the on-the-spot fines, as well as the instantaneous humiliation and open punishment imposed on offenders by soldiers on the streets. But look how quickly things deteriorated with the departure of Buhari and Idiagbon. No sooner did Buhari’s government fall to Ibrahim Babangida and his partners in coup in August 1985 than the good behaviour side of Nigerians disappeared. The departure of Buhari and Idiagbon – the symbols of coercion -- marked the return of bad manners in the Nigerian psyche. Unruly behaviour became the norm. Queuing at bus stops or airports became a major challenge to many people. Jaywalking (crossing streets carelessly without using designated crossing spots) became our preferred way of dashing across major highways in disregard for oncoming traffic. Rushing, pushing and shoving at airports, bus stops and post offices were deemed the right way to get things done quickly. And things have remained that way or deteriorated ever since. We live in a disorderly society in which no one cares about the welfare and wellbeing of others. It is a society in which everyone feels the government owes them something – to clean up their own mess. It is a society in which the government is perceived as the solution to all problems. Do we really need government to tell us how to maintain our environment? Do we need government to lift our level of personal hygiene in our own homes? In the past, government used to intervene directly through public health officers who visited homes, schools and public places to enforce basic standards of hygiene. Many people perceived that intervention as an unnecessary interference in their lives. Others, particularly civil liberty groups, perceived it as an affront on their privacy. And yet others simply ignored public health officers and the penalties imposed on people who breached basic rules of hygiene. Efficient and proper waste management is, after all, not a waste of our time. It is a source of wealth. It is fundamental to the quality of our lives. Managed properly, wastes from human and industrial activities won’t harm our health, our environment and the future generation. The challenge is for everyone to engage in proper disposal of wastes.
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