Impacts of Waste Management on the Socio-economic Development of Lagos State

Abstract

Waste Management is one of the Challenges facing African Continent most especially  Nigeria. Waste over the years is indiscriminately disposed such that Residential Areas,  Highways, Streets, Market Places and Under developed Plots of Land have been  converted to Waste Dumps, despite the mechanism like periodic environmental  sanitation, huge sum of money spent to train the personnel, Franchise given to Private by  Lagos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) to collect waste so as to ensure that  Lagos State is tidy. The State is still far from being clean which is affecting her Socio economic development. It is against this backdrop that this study seeks to examine the  extent at which waste generation and storage, primary waste collection and  transportation to a transfer station, street sweeping and cleaning of public places have  contributed to socio-economic development of Lagos State. The study relies on both  primary and secondary sources like questionnaires, interview, journals, publication,  internet etc. to generate data. The data was analyzed using SPSS. The study reveals that  waste has not been adequately managed, hence it has negative consequence on socio economic development of Lagos State. The paper therefore recommends that the  government and the stakeholder should enforce the sanitary law to the letter and ensure  that the defaulters are severely dealt with through payment of huge fine.