TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE WASTE MANAGEMENT APPROACH IN KANO METROPOLIS: LESSONS MUSLIM CITIES

The question of waste management is as old as 3,000 years BCE, when man began to settle and form cities; and waste will continue to be part of life itself. In this context, International Institute Of Islamic Thought (IIIT) Kano Office Nigeria, in its 205th monthly seminar series, hosted Dr. Murtala Uba Mohammed and Dr. Sabitu Sa'ad Da'au, where the duo presented on 'Towards Sustainable Waste Management Approach in Kano Metropolis: Lessons from the Muslim Cities'.

The first presenter, Dr. Murtala, defined waste as anything without immediate value, noting that what you deem without value may be the input for another, and the cycle continues. He highlighted the overwhelming concentration of the global population in urban centres, with 60%, which by 2050, the concentration will be up to 70%, necessitating the need to tackle the issue of waste. Nigeria is said to have a 3.8% urbanization rate, greater than the recommended 1.67%. This also poses a greater challenge of rural-urban migration, and Kano, being one of the major big cities in Nigeria alongside Lagos, Port Harcourt, and of course Federal Capital Territory, Abuja with their consistent growth outpaced the capacity of municipal authorities to handle waste.

The paper dwelled on solid waste, which consolidated the major waste generated, and Kano generates 11,000 metric tons of waste on a daily basis, with combination of both formal municipal services and informal actors such as cart pushers and scavengers only able to collect 30% of the waste. What happens to the 70%? The later caused drains blockad, indiscriminate littering and other waste nusiances. An average citizen in Kano generates an average of 0.55kg of waste every day. The structure of the waste disposal settings are formal and informal. The former being REMASAB and other private managers, while the latter, which takes a good chunk, is left for cart pushers and scavengers (yan gwangwan) couple with open dumping.

This arrangement poses risks, which include:

1.       Awareness issues regarding waste by the people,

2.       Lack of or little political willingness,

3.      Low institutional capacity and supervision gap

4.      Funding issues.

Waste recycling in Kano is termed largely as informal, with little technical know-how. More disturbingly, there is a lack of any standard landfill in the state. Even the primary collection centers, which were strategically situated in most localities on reserved land, have been 'shared' by politicians. What then can we learn from the Muslim cities in sustainable waste management? After establishing Muslim cities as those with a predominantly Muslim population with ingredients of Muslim tradition such as mosques, madrasas, etc., emphasizing that these are not cities governed by Islamic principles. The presenter, Dr Murtala reiterated the integration of Islamic values such as cleanliness, stewardship, moderation, among others which will further serve as motivation in shaping public behaviour and promote participation

 

Four cities that were selected in different corners of the world were:

1.       Cairo in Africa,

2.       Istanbul, which is partly Asia and partly Europe,

3.      Abu Dhabi from the Middle East, and

4.      Cities in Malaysia and Indonesia.

There were several lessons from these cities that Kano can adopt to upscale its waste management game, as highlighted by the paper, but I will mention some here:

1.       Formailizing the informal sector; this is key in reorganizing and setting a great trend for managing waste sustainably. This also entails providing the necessary enlightenment to all the informal actors, that can together, help in bringing sanity to the system, and ease regulations.

2.       Establishing public-private-community partnership; this approach called for practical inclusion of community along with private managers and the government in a deliberate attempt to efficiently manage waste.

3.      Investing in transfer stations and sanitary landfills; this is key for Kano need standard and sanitary landfills, now like never before, for it will not just help in waste disposal but will serve as rallying point for recycling industries while creating job opportunities.

4.      Promoting waste to energy and composting initiative; as Kano’s markets were noted to have more than 90% of their waste from organic content. This therefore provides a perfect avenue for compost making initiatives.

5.      Implementing long term awareness campaign; this called for general and long term enlightenment for all the citizens on how to improve their relationship with their waste. This is most significant component of the approach and getting this right will set an efficient waste management strategy in the state. It also called for collaboration with all the community stakeholders including the Imams leveraging on their influence.    

Dr. Sabitu rode on the first presenter's point, bringing more life to the data in respect of the sources of the data, which the paper categorized into residential areas, markets, industries, street littering, corner shop, schools, hospitals, MDAs among others. The residential source is further subdivided into densely, moderately dense, and low-density areas. The point I find beautiful is the emphasis that most of the cities above, succeed in managing their waste because of their awareness regarding waste; this enabled most household to sort out their waste from generation, which made it easier for subsequent stages of management. With analysis from Kano market showing organic content of up to 90% or more, Kano is a perfect spot for compost making.

The chair, Professor Aliyu Baba Nabegu, wowed the session with his bold revelation about identifying one's socioeconomic status, household size, and other indices by just having access to one's waste. This is quite a new discovery for me. The practical demonstration was when he was Deputy Vice Chancellor at Aliko Dangote University of Science and Technology, where through waste analysis coming from the hostels, they were able to discover the menace of drug abuse among the students. This, therefore, calls for us to pay more attention to our household waste. Other discussions included the prospect of waste in Kano, where only collection and disposal are happening with no treatment schemes and getting almost no value from the waste yet.