As waste treatment facility lies fallow in PH: Researcher gives critical benefits of methane emission abatement

Soberekon Afiesimama is a renowned researcher who is now working to find ways to reduce methane emission. He now works with the Environmental Centre for Oil and Gas Spill (ECOSGF) in Nigeria. He calls attention on reactivation of waste water treatment facility in Eagle Island in Port Harcourt.

He spoke with newsmen in Port Harcourt;

Now we are talking about abatement of methane emissions in Nigeria, that’s how to reduce methane emissions, waste water. Apart from oil and gas activities, agricultural activities, waste management activities, and waste water are also other very important sources of methane emissions, globally including Nigeria.

Now coming to our own dear city of Port Harcourt, we have a waste water treatment facility at Eagle Island owned by the Rivers State Government but as we speak right now, nothing is happening there. It will interest you to know that there’s a biogas unit attached to that facility and since the waste water treatment facility is a means of reducing emissions, methane emissions, request that government should put that facility back to proper use to take care of this methane threat that we are talking about.

We want to also see more waste water treatment facilities in Rivers State, because as our population is increasing, our waste water generation is also increasing alongside the solid waste. So, if we have more waste water treatment facilities in Eagle Island, it will help to take care of methane emissions especially in Rivers State.

There are so many benefits, when we reduce methane emissions because methane has been known (apart from the global warming issues) to affect health agricultural productivity.

So when we do everything we can to reduce methane in our environment, apart from the fact that it will help take care of climate change, like the waste water treatment and facility we are talking about, the slot that will come up after the waste treatment can be used as fertiliser in our agricultural practice that will help to boost food produce. Again the biogas that we get from waste treatment or waste water facility can be used for cooking, for electricity generation, and so many other things and that will boost the economy.

It is not all the waste that actually generates or emits methane. The typical waste collected from the dump has different components; plastics, glass, stones, other items. Then we have what we call the organic component, that is a component that can decay. It is that component that causes methane emission in the process of decomposition.

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Now, it will interest you to know from studies that the waste stream that we have especially in this part of the world has about 50% of it as organic waste. So, when you now do your separation and 50% of it is organic waste, which you know actually leads to methane emission, that’s a big problem and today now, our population is on the increase.

With increased population there’s also increased waste generation which will automatically lead to more methane emission.

So, we are encouraging that right from our homes, the food waste that we generate from our kitchens, from our farms, instead of just allowing them go into the waste streams we can actually deal with it and use them to form what is called manure, which can be used in our gardens, instead of allowing these things to go to the waste disposal.

So, carrying the waste to the middle of the road and making them a heap for scavengers is bad practice. If waste is managed well in the homes, emission will be less. Gather the wastes and leaves you cut from flowers and grasses and turn them to manure in our farms. Even some of these things and leaves we burn contribute to methane emission.

So, by doing what is right, we don’t need to wait for government. At our home front we can begin to do what we call waste separation. I do that at my house, I have different containers, the ones for food waste, I tell them don’t throw that away, is going to the farm because I also have my own farm. Glasses and stone we dispose off, but degradables such as food waste and banana pills, we send them back to the farm.