weswa
Registered: March 2011
City/Town/Province: dar es salaam
Posts: 2
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Malaria
Malaria is an infectious illness caused by protozoa of the genus plasmodium. It is often accompanied by fever, convulsion, anemia and death. In pregnant women it may result in low birth weight, contributing to maternal and infant morbidity as well as abortion and maternal death (AMREF, 1999)
The disease is caused by female anopheles specie mosquitoes when sucking blood of human being for ripening its eggs in the stomach before laying it. The specie of mosquito tends to lay its eggs/bread into clean stagnated water. Thus, due to improper disposal of solid waste containing the coconut shells, and sometimes any other thrown containers such as plastic utensils (dishes, plates, bowls etc), broken bottles, glasses, pieces of pots etc, that can easily stagnate water so that mosquito can easily bread over there, hence leads to malaria spread because it is a vector of malaria.
Cholera
Is an acute infection of the intestine caused by the bacteria Vibrio cholerae which is transmitted in contaminated drinking water with faeces from a patient.
Epidemic of cholera occur in a region where sanitation is poor. After an incubation period of 1-5 days, cholera causes severe vomiting and diarrhoea, which untreated leads to dehydration that can cause fatal. (The Macmillan Encyclopedia, pg. 272)
Vibrio cholerae survive for a long time in a place where there is high improper of faecal matter disposal. Therefore, due to improper management of faeces, this attracts housefly to feed on it and breed there. During feeding, the housefly which is the mechanical vector of the cholera causative agent, picks this agent with pores of its body to either food or water where as, when human being eat or drink an infected food or water, acquire the diseases and within as short time, a patient starts to vomit and diarrhoea a watery profused diarrhoea (known as rice water). But it is not urgent to the vibrio cholerae to be spread by only houseflies; even human being managing the patient unhygienically can spread the disease.
Bacillary dysentery
Is an inflammation of large intestine (colon), causing severe diarrhoea, usually with blood and mucus. The disease is most often caused by the shigella bacillus and can give rise to epidemics. Also the disease spread by faecal contamination of food and water, where sanitation is poor. (Longman encyclopedia – 1st edition, pg. 320 )
Odour
Refers to the property of a substance that is perceptible by the sense of smell (The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary – II, Marl-Z and Addenda, pg.1436)
Unpleasant smell is an outcome of decaying organic waste materials due to improper waste management. The health of the community always being at risk since this odour causes annoyance and disgust that may lead to vomiting.
THE GENERATION OF SOLID WASTE
With regards to the issues of refuse collection and disposal, the Dodoma Municipal Council is among many Tanzania urban local government authorities (ULGA) which is facing a bigger problem of refuse accumulation heaps.
The structure of Dodoma municipal is divided into two structure the town municipal and rural municipal. The quantity of waste generated in urban municipal differs from those generated in rural municipal. The different in quantity of this waste generated is due to variation in life styles, economic status and difference in localities.
As stated earlier that Dodoma municipal consist a total population of 441450 people, it is also estimated that each person generate an average solid waste of about 0.5kg to 0.8kgs per day. The waste generated includes heavy organic waste with high moisture content, light organic or inorganic waste such as paper, plastics, glass, and garbage’s. In total about 278 tones of solid waste are generated daily.
Although 278 tones of solid waste are produced in Dodoma municipal the chief producers of the solid waste are;
• Domestic and commercial waste that produce about 178 tons
• Institutions that produces about 70 tones
• Industries that produce 30 tones
Types of these waste produced differs in form depending the place of generation. For stance hospital waste differs from market wastes, garden waste, demolishment, domestics and industrial wastes.
Collection of wastes in Dodoma Municipality
Collection of wastes in Dodoma municipality is done in crude collection manner. This is kind of collection whereby solid and organic wastes are not separated. There are two categories of collection of wastes; Primary collection and secondary collection.
Primary collection
It involves door to door collection done by a community based organizations (CBOs) employed to serve the purpose. There is terms of agreement between CBOs and Dodoma municipal council, whereby the CBOs has to pay 10,000/= Tshs to the council, While CBOs has to collect monthly contribution from the households as per by laws established by the municipal council on 2005. This is the only source of income to the CBOs that enable them to cover the cost of running day to day activities such as wages and buying hand push cars as well as repairing and maintenance (Dodoma municipal council, 2008).
The door to door collection is done on Monday. Wednesday and Saturday where, wastes collected is sent to the collection points. There is four collection points which are situated at Kiwanja cha ndege, Bahi road, Mlezi and chang’ombe.168 tons of crude wastes are collected per day in these collection points.
Dumping
Since the Municipal council is planning to establish a new dump site under the World Bank major cities infrastructure upgrading program, the new landfill should adopt the sanitary land filling or controlled tipping system which is an engineered operation, designed and operated according to acceptable standards. It may be defined as a method of disposing refuse on land without creating nuisances or hazard to public health or safety. Under this system the public health problems are minimized because flies, rats and other pest are unable to breed in the covered refuse. No air pollution from burning and Fire hazards are minimal.
In order to avoid the danger of ground water pollution from leachates, air pollution from landfill gases, scavengers from entering the site the following conditions should be given priority:
• Construction of the fence around the whole landfill site
• Construction of landfill site base by using clay soil and heavy plastic sheet to trap leachate
• Construction of leachate treatment ponds
• Construction of waste sorting chamber and hazardous waste storage room
• Provision of water for normal use and fire fighting
• Provision of weighing bridge for weighing all the vehicles taking the waste in the landfill
• Construction of the landfill site manager’s office and plants and equipment shed
• Solid waste should be covered by soil daily
• Construction of incinerator for burning the health care waste and other waste that need special destruction
• Provide a means of extracting and flaring the landfill gas.
Conclusion
Generally the management of the solid waste in Dodoma Municipality is satisfactory but the main problem facing the council is inadequate solid waste transport facilities which depicted by the huge amount of solid waste existing at the four collection points compared to the amount of solid waste taken to the final disposal daily.
Recycling practices should be encouraged and promoted by Municipal Council to minimize the amount of solid waste which is dumped to the dumping site. Health care waste should not be incinerated and strictly not dumped to the collection points. Street cleaning services should also be given priority by providing adequate working tools to workers like wheel barrows, reflecting overcoats, face masks and heavy duty gloves.
In order to be build a habit of avoiding indiscriminate throwing of litter, provision of adequate street litter bins should be done hand in hand with provision of sanitation and hygiene education as well as enforcement of Laws and By laws governing waste management
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