Solid Waste Crisis in Nigeria – A Case Study of the Constraint to Effective Private Sector Participation (PSP) on Solid Waste Management in Lagos Metropolis
Among the multitude of problems existing in the fast urbanizing towns and cities in Nigeria, Solid waste appears to be the most prominent in recent years. Solid waste is seen in huge heaps on any piece of unused land, around buildings and in the open market places. Living with solid waste littered around appears to be an acceptable way of life among the people in most cities in Nigeria in recent years. The work reported in this paper involves a preliminary study of residential solid waste management in the Lagos metropolis in Nigeria. A site-specific study was carried out to estimate the quantity of residential solid waste generation, disposal and management in the metropolis. Structured questionnaires were applied to collect primary information such as size of households, income, Educational level etc. from households. The results obtained indicated that the problem of insufficient available data, insufficient funding, poor understanding of solid waste management by the PSP operators and poor publics attitude are the causes of solid waste crisis in Nigeria. Proposal on strategies for the improvement of the effectiveness of the PSP operators in Lagos metropolis has been presented.