GAPS IN SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT IN ELELE COMMUNITY
Favour Chukumela, Woko
Department of Integrated Science
Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Rumuolumeni, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Email favourchukumalewoko@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Elele community has experienced unprecedented increase in its population due to several reasons. Returnees from neighbouring communities that has problems, influx of internally displaced people due to insecurity in some parts of the Local Government and within and influx of expertise seeking jobs in the city are few of the many reasons which contributed to the increase in the population. This increase in population has result to increase in the volume of solid wastes generated. Due to changing lifestyles and consumption patterns, the quantity of waste generated has increased with quality and composition of waste becoming more varied and changing. The Local Government Sanitation Authority is the only public institution mandated to handle, among other things, solid waste management in the community. It is the department that is fully responsible for administering and financing the solid waste management. However, the department is challenged with lack of treatment and disposal facilities, limited and unsustainable funding, inadequate technical capacity and lack of policy, laws and plans for solid waste management. Despite all these limitations, the department of environment and sanitation is striving to ensure that the community is kept clean and environmentally friendly. The main issues in the management of the generated solid wastes is the lack of plan, limited and unsustainable funding and lack of the legal mandate to recruit technical staff. This paper seeks to identify the gaps in the management of solid waste in Elele community and find out the challenges the Sanitation Authority is facing therein. It also focused on the administrative, financial and the technical aspects of solid waste.
Keywords: Environment, environmental sanitation, solid waste management, solid waste,
