Health Tips: Dangers of Improper Waste Disposal

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By Charity Odoh

Research has shown that each household generates 0.002% of wastes per-day. These includes: organic and inorganic. Globally, millions of tons of households generate solid waste every day. 

It has become a norm for every household or Individual to dispose wastes in improper ways such as: disposing directly in drainages, erosion paths or by the roadsides. These means of disposal eventually endanger the health, and pose a threat to the environment at large.

Medical research has brought to the limelight that generated wastes which include: liquid-solid and gas are further categorized into municipal, hazardous, biomedical, and special hazardous wastes. All of these contribute to health and environmental challenges in the society.

Wastes, irrespective of their forms have been proven to contain disease-causing organisms known as pathogens. This literarily means that every waste is capable of affecting your health negatively. Wastes are believed to be carriers of diseases like parasitic infections, lung infections, skin infections, candida among others. Looking beyond the risks they pose on the health, it is pertinent to also note that wastes have negative effects on the environment.

In recent years, it has been observed that the climate keeps changing as a result of deflation in ozone layers, which is otherwise caused by the release of waste in form of dangerous and harmful gas into the atmosphere. Thereby, making the environment get dangerous daily.

Also, wastes thrown or disposed in drainages or erosion paths, sometimes prevent the free flow of water and easy passage of erosion. For example, in some developing and  underdeveloped countries, it has become a norm for people to dispose their waste products in the drainages at the slight drop of rain, with the aim of getting them swept away by the rain. This action consequently leads to blockage of erosion paths and bridges, thereby resulting in flooding, which might eventually dispose people of their homes and render them homeless.

In other to curb every hazardous activity of wastes disposal, the government should employ waste management strategies such as: proper collection and disposal of wastes by private bodies, recycling recyclable materials such as glass, paper, cardboard, metal.

In addition, proper sanitation facilities like toilets, latrines and communal trash bins should be made available at strategic places. Enforcement of sanitation bodies should also be put in place to control the system of waste disposal.

It is generally believed that ignorance kills faster that virus. In view of this, adequate education and awareness programs should be made available to the people. They should be sensitized on the dangers and threats of improper wastes disposal, as well as the benefits of taking proper and good care of the environment.