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Poor waste management will have negative effect in various areas:
a) Potential health and safety hazard at point of origin or handling
b) Harmful impact on the surrounding and wider environment
c) Reflects badly on the of standard and quality of operation being carried out- operating procedures should be in place to ensure proper management of all aspects of Health, Safety and the Environment
When we improperly disposed off can be an environmental hazard in that the surrounding environment as well as the fish are affected. This improper damping can lead to death of fish as well as diseases to man.
Poor waste management has various socioeconomic and public health consenquences. For instance, unmanaged waste is just a nuisance and distorts the aesthetics of any place. Several useful materials go into waste which would otherwise generate income had recycling been done. Wasteful purchase is another factor linked to poor waste management and the related economic cost. Most people buy what they do not need and the result is uncontroled and unplanned waste which is a detriment to health and environment. A case in example is the increasing impact of e-waste. In addition, poorly managed waste is associated with various public health consenquences such as communicable diseases and occupational injuries.
Environmental Effects of Poor Waste Management
Traditionally, health and safety have been the major concerns in the management of the solid waste eventual effective disposal. However, society now demands more than this: that the solid waste management system should consider both short- and long-term effects on the environment (including conservation of resources and prevention of pollution), and the system should be reliable and environmentally compatible. Biodegradable organic materials attract rats, flies, mosquitoes, cockroaches, pigs, birds and other vectors which can transfer human and animal diseases to the human population. They also emit greenhouse gases (predominantly methane and carbon dioxide ) in the transformation processes. Methane is estimated to be approximately 20 times more damaging than carbon dioxide on a volume basis (USEPA, 1994) and therefore methane is very significant with respect to climate change.
The waste material also often contains broken glass and other sharp objects which are potentially dangerous to people coming in contact with this waste. Hanks (1967) and Techobanoglous et al. (1993) traced the relationship of 22 human diseases to inadequate solid waste management. Diarrohea, dysentery, cholera, typhoid, salmonellosis, plague, hepatitis, chronic respiratory diseases that can spread due to poor management of solid waste. Thus unhygienically disposed waste in urban areas poses a serious health hazard to urban dwellers, particularly to the poorest of the poor, waste workers and scavenging solid waste as a source of income in lower middle class countries.
The mismanagement of solid waste also affects the productivity and other infrastructure. The major risks associated with poor management of solid waste include the spread of diseases, overall environment pollution (air, water, soil) including emission of greenhouse gases, effects on other infrastructure, and physical, chemical, and fire and explosion hazards. The physical and chemical hazard generally included dangers associated with direct contact with sharps and/or infected sharps use of certain toxic chemical/solution, risks of explosion and fire hazards of certain solvents.
Financial It gives an indication that the management of solid waste absorbs a huge amount of the municipal budgets, and the cost of public cleansing, transportation, and transfer is much higher in low- and middle- income countries compared with that of industrial countries. The optimization of productivity of collection vehicles and workers involved in public cleansing and collection services can improved the situation to achieve greater efficiency and cutting the cost of solid waste management system. There is also indirect financial loss involving the costs associated with the environmental damage.
Hazardeous material from chemical sites pose a problem to ocean flows effecting animal life and plant life. Species die over a faster rate of time and plastic bags in the ocean travel across to other places blocking outlets and water stagenates over time causing diseases and rot.
