DETERMINATION OF CARBON EMISSION POTENTIALS IN A SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT FACILITY IN AKURE, NIGERIA

Emissions emanating from poor solid waste management have increased steadily on a global scale particularly in developing countries including Nigeria. Incidentally, such, emissions in Nigeria have been estimated based on national statistics on waste generation which are neither accurate nor consistent. This study therefore characterized generated Municipal Solid Wastes (MSW) and determined the carbon emission potentials of the open dump in the solid waste management facility in Akure, Ondo State, NigeriaSolid wastes brought to the MSW facility from three locations viz: markets, residences and kerbside, were characterised and quantified monthly for a period of one year. The methane emission potential arising from the wastes for the period of study was determined using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Default Method (DM) and First Order Decay (FOD) method. Carbon-dioxide emissions estimate based on the MSW composition was also determined using the IPCC (2006) guidelines Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA at ????0.05 The total wastes generated from all the sources were 5,834,005.0 + 5,079633.8 and 4,266,871.0 +3,745,337.8 kg;9,159,995.0 + 8,453,005.4 and 6,777,621.3+6,313,977.0 kg and 7,794,894.0 +7,569,909.7 and 5,724,532.0 +5,596,562.0 kg, for paper, plastics and food wastes in the wet and dry seasons respectively. Methane emissions were 80.8 and 42.3 Gg/yr for DM and 2.9 and 1.5 Gg/yr for FOD in the wet and dry seasons respectively. The estimated CO2 emissions was 1.2 Gg/Yr. The solid waste disposal facility is a significant contributor of methane and carbon dioxide emissions in Akure. Further studies should be carried to provide methane and carbon dioxide specific properties of the solid waste generated in Akure in order to build an inventory of carbon emission parameters.