How foul smell, odour, noxious fumes from dumpsites make life unbearable for Ibadan residents

In the bust­ling city of Ibadan, the chal­lenge of waste man­age­ment and dis­posal has become endemic. Behind the facade of streets, described by John Pep­per Clark as, a ‘run­ning splash of rust and gold- flung and scattered among seven hills like broken china in the sun’, are poorly man­aged dump­sites threat­en­ing lives of res­id­ents.

The city is ser­viced by four dump­sites namely: Lap­ite, Ajakanga, Aba- eku and Awotan, all loc­ated in Akinyele, Oluy­ole, Ona- ara and Ido coun­cils, respect­ively. The four dump­sites are solely man­aged by the state gov­ern­ment through the Oyo State Waste Man­age­ment Author­ity ( OYOWMA).

Accord­ing to OYOWMA, Aba- eku is the old­est dump­site estab­lished in 1985 while the largest dump­site is Awotan occupy­ing 20 hec­tares fol­lowed by Ajakanga 10, Aba- eku 9.4 and Lap­ite 9.

The Guard­ian gathered that the waste depos­ited at Ajakanga dump­site is the highest with 162, 117 met­ric tons yearly fol­lowed by Aba- eku, Awotan, and Lap­ite ( 102, 705, 95, 775, and 87, 218) respect­ively. And over the years, these dump­sites have been emit­ting nox­ious fumes and odors mak­ing life unbear­able for res­id­ents.

These sites, which were said to be ini­tially small land­fill, have now turned into a massive dump­sites that are under­reg­u­lated and lack infra­struc­ture for waste man­age­ment, as a res­ult, the site are con­stantly over­flow­ing with waste. Loc­ated in dif­fer­ent neigh­bour­hoods, these dump­sites are over­flow­ing with all sorts of waste from house­hold garbage to indus­trial by- products. The lack of proper water man­age­ment infra­struc­ture coupled with the city’s rapid urb­an­isa­tion has only exacer­bated the prob­lem.

As a res­ult, these dump­sites have become breed­ing grounds for dis­ease, air and water pol­lu­tion and a source of envir­on­mental health haz­ards for res­id­ents liv­ing nearby.

These waste dis­posal sites, once meant to handle the city’s waste in an effi­cient and san­it­ary man­ner, have become a loom­ing threat to the health and well being of the local com­munit­ies.

From envir­on­mental degrad­a­tion to pub­lic health risks, the con­sequences of these poorly man­aged dump­sites are far reach­ing and demand urgent atten­tion.

Angered by the threat these sites posed and health chal­lenge faced by res­id­ents, who are always vis­it­ing the hos­pital because of res­pir­at­ory prob­lems and other ill­nesses, the Oyo State House of Assembly called on the exec­ut­ive arm, through the waste man­age­ment author­ity, to imple­ment and enforce strict waste reg­u­la­tions at Lap­ite dump­site to con­trol the waste at the site.

This fol­lowed a motion brought to the House by the mem­ber rep­res­ent­ing Akinyele state con­stitu­ency 1, Hon. Lekan Abiola, dur­ing plen­ary.

Accord­ing to Abiola, the Lap­ite dump­site on the OyoIbadan Express­way is reek­ing out dis­gust­ing smell to people in the com­munit­ies and road users thereby becom­ing an alarm­ing threat to both human health and the envir­on­ment.

Abiola also hin­ted that the prac­tice of burn­ing waste at the Lap­ite dump­site is caus­ing severe air pol­lu­tion, not­ing that the harm­ful chem­ic­als and particles released dur­ing burn­ing are a dir­ect threat to the res­pir­at­ory health of nearby res­id­ents.

He said: “Without imme­di­ate inter­ven­tion, the health risks and envir­on­mental dam­age caused by the Lap­ite dump­site will con­tinue to escal­ate. The well- being of the com­munity and the pre­ser­va­tion of the local eco­sys­tem are at stake.

“The unchecked dis­posal of waste at this site, driven by rapid pop­u­la­tion growth, indus­trial activ­it­ies, and urb­an­isa­tion, has led to severe envir­on­mental dam­age. The dis­turb­ing prac­tice of burn­ing waste at the dump­site adds to the prob­lem by releas­ing harm­ful fumes into the atmo­sphere, endan­ger­ing the health of nearby res­id­ents,” Abiola said.

The law­maker, however, stressed the need for gov­ern­ment to enforce 100m set­back and peri­meter fen­cing around the dump­sites.

Con­sid­er­ing the motion, law­makers on the floor of the House decried indis­crim­in­ate dump­ing of refuse by res­id­ents, which they said was cap­able of caus­ing erosion and flood­ing espe­cially dur­ing rainy sea­son.

React­ing, Speaker of the House, Rt Hon. Adebo Ogun­doyin, called on the exec­ut­ive to develop and imple­ment a detailed waste man­age­ment plan that includes reg­u­lar mon­it­or­ing, effect­ive waste segreg­a­tion, recyc­ling, and safe dis­posal meth­ods.

Ogun­doyin also urged the exec­ut­ive, through the Min­istry of Inform­a­tion, to launch aware­ness cam­paigns and edu­ca­tional pro­grammes to inform the pub­lic about the dangers of improper waste man­age­ment and encour­age com­munity par­ti­cip­a­tion in main­tain­ing envir­on­mental health.

Dur­ing a visit to Lap­ite dump­site, res­id­ents of the com­munity said they have been facing this haz­ard for years. They noted that sev­eral com­plaints were made to gov­ern­ment but noth­ing con­crete has come out except gov­ern­ment’s prom­ises.

Not­ing that these dump­sites have led to a decline in the qual­ity of life for res­id­ents, they said the heaps of garbage make it unbear­able for people to even step out­side their homes, let alone enjoy their sur­round­ings.

While also lament­ing the smoke from the burn­ing of waste mater­i­als, which cre­ates a thick haze that hangs over the com­munity, a res­id­ent, who gave his name as Ikudaisi, said the stench from the dump­sites stifles breath.

He said, “the uncon­trolled decom­pos­i­tion of organic waste releases meth­ane gas and other harm­ful pol­lut­ants into the air that con­trib­ute to res­pir­at­ory ail­ments and other health prob­lems among res­id­ents. The leach­ing of toxic chem­ic­als from the waste into the soil and ground­wa­ter fur­ther com­pounds the issue, pos­ing a ser­i­ous threat to the health of the entire com­munity.”

Experts who spoke to The Guard­ian on the envir­on­mental con­sequences of these poorly man­aged dump­sites said the end res­ult is erosion and loss of biod­iversity in the sur­round­ing areas.

Accord­ing to them con­tam­in­a­tion of water sources with haz­ard­ous sub­stances poses a grave risk to both human and animal pop­u­la­tions, with long- term implic­a­tions for the eco­sys­tem as a whole.

It was learnt that prop­erty val­ues in the vicin­ity of these sites have plummeted, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for res­id­ents to sell their homes or attract new busi­nesses to the area.

A res­id­ent of Olukitila Vil­lage, in Akinyele com­munity, who has been liv­ing in the envir­on­ment for 15 years, Akeebu Azeez, expressed deep con­cern about the burn­ing of refuse at the nearby dump­site affect­ing the local com­munity.

“The burn­ing of refuse at the dump­site severely affects us res­id­ents. The smell and swarms of flies are unbear­able. Instead of dis­pos­ing of the waste far from the road­side, they dump it nearby, caus­ing con­ges­tion that makes it dif­fi­cult for two vehicles to pass,” said Azeez. “Des­pite our repeated appeals, author­it­ies have not addressed this issue.”

Con­tinu­ing, Azeez noted that the “burn­ing of waste has even res­ul­ted in fatal­it­ies. Often, acci­dents occur because the smoke and flames obscure vis­ib­il­ity for drivers and ped­es­tri­ans. We urgently call on the gov­ern­ment to inter­vene and remove the waste from our envir­on­ment, espe­cially with the cur­rent chol­era out­break.

“Many res­id­ents have already relo­cated owing to the health haz­ards posed by this dump­site. The situ­ation has become unten­able.”

Lament­ing the situ­ation, Faith Ayan­wale said: “Fin­an­cial con­straints pre­vent many of us from installing proper water fil­tra­tion sys­tems, leav­ing us depend­ent on pur­chas­ing sachet water for our daily needs. This situ­ation has worsened over the years.