Investigating the Wastes Management Practices of Businesses in Nigeria

Wastes and environmental management in many Nigerian cities have suffered tremendous setbacks in the last few decades. Literatures and environmental reports confirm a below average performance in relation to wastes and environmental management practices. Apart from unwholesome practices that characterises wastes management at household levels, many businesses across Nigeria have also capitalized on the lack of proper monitoring and enforcement of wastes and environmental laws to adopt practices that promotes organizational profits over environmental quality. Hence, the current research investigates wastes management practices of small businesses (retailers) in Nigeria with a view to identify where corrections should be made in order to improve the overall wastes management standards in the country. In order to achieve these aims and to proffer adequate solutions to the wastes management issues in the city, the paper employed a mixed method approach using closed and open-ended questionnaires in collecting data. In all about 900 questionnaires were collected and analysed for the study. A multi stage cluster sampling technique was employed due to the unavailability of an up-to-date sampling frame in the study area. It was found that businesses were heavily involved in unfriendly environmental practices such as; burning of wastes, random and indiscriminate disposal, dumping of wastes on water bodies and disposal on illegal dumpsites. These wastes management practices were found to be a clear violation of standard international best practices as only a fraction of businesses dispose their wastes using official disposal points. The study therefore advocates that the wastes management authorities develop a means of influencing the environmental culture of organizations (retailers) in order to improve wastes management among businesses. Similarly, the research argues that adequate environmental policies be formulated and enforced in order to encourage retailers to embrace sustainable wastes management practices.