A Survey of the Perception of Secondary School Students on the Problems of Waste Disposal in Onitsha Urban.
INTRODUCTION
Domestic waste is the waste generated as consequence of household activities such as the cleaning, cooking, repairing empty container, packaging, huge use of plastic carry bags.
Humanity has always produced waste that included not only the discarded bones of animals slaughtered for food, hundreds of stone axes found in Olduvia, or the stinking cesspits and hidden heaps of Medieval Europe but the momentous increase in waste that characterizes contemporary society, dating from the industrial revolution Waste is more easily recognized than defined.
Something can become waste when it is no longer useful to the owner or it is used and fails to fulfill its purpose. A great mixture of substances including fine dust, cinder, metal, glass, paper and cardboard, textiles, putrescible vegetable materials and plastic characterize solid waste.
In Nigeria, the problem of solid waste management (SWM) has been a concern which has existed for long in many big Nigerian cities such as in Onitsha, Lagos and other state etc. ( Gobo, 2004).
The management of solid waste is today one of the important obligatory functions of the Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the entire country. However, this very important.
Waste, or rubbish, trash, junk, garbage, depending on the type of material or the regional terminology, is an unwanted or undesired material or substances.
It may consist of the unwanted materials left over from a manufacturing process (industrial, commercial, mining or agricultural operation) or from community and household activities.
The material may be discarded or accumulated, stored or treated (physically, chemically, or biologically), prior to being discarded or recycled. It is also used to describe something we use inefficiently or inappropriately.
According to Rundell (2000), he defined waste as unwanted materials or substances that ware left after something as being used such as industrial, chemical ,agricultural sewage waste etc.
Ochulor (1988) also noted that those materials which as outlive their usefulness and collected for abortment can be referred to as waste.
The public confidence on the ability and the capability of the LGAs to play this statutory role diminished in the face of mounting heaps of refuse on major roads and highways.
This is not without the ensuing environmental pollution that made the entire system unsatisfactory (Ojeshina,1996; Longe, 2005).
Even though the fundamental objectives of any solid waste management programme are to minimize environmental pollution, these goals become unachievable in the absence of sustained funding, affordable local technological option and lack of participatory approach to integrated solid waste management.
Currently in Nigeria, household waste of different sources are mixed and co-disposed without any form of segregation and sorting (Longe and Williams, 2006).
Household waste could contain hazardous and toxic waste such as expired drugs, dried cells, broken class, syringes and thus constitute serious environmental and health hazards (Delgado, 2007).
Willingness to pay for waste management services or facilities is very important to the success of the private sectors’ participation (PSP) in (SWM) program.
The willingness to or not to pay could have direct impact (positive or negative) on the reliability and success of any solid waste management strategy ( Rahman, 2005).
The question therefore has to do with the economics of household waste management especially in a developing economy like Nigeria.
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