Performance Assessment of Solid Waste Management following Private Partnership Operations in Lagos State, Nigeria

The strategy of delivering modern, high quality public services and promoting competition in the waste management sector leads to formation of private sector participation (PSP) to handle solid waste management in Lagos State. The findings depict that quality of service among the PSP operators recorded high success in the high income areas than those of the low and medium income areas. On the average, industry productivity was 6.63 tonnes per day per vehicle. 18 out of 30 companies in the study area were above this average and in meeting increased productivity, year of experience in operations, number of trips made, number of times trucks were serviced, and adhering to regulatory agency requirement were among the factors influencing company’s productivity in the state. The study, therefore, recommends that regulatory agency should be more aggressive in playing its statutory roles of managing the PSP operators. 1. Introduction Municipal solid waste management constitutes one of the most crucial health and environmental problems facing governments of African cities. This is because even though these cities are using 20–50 percent of their budget in solid waste management, only 20–80 percent of the waste is collected. The uncollected or illegally dumped wastes constitute a disaster for human health and the environmental degradation [1]. More so population growth, high urbanization, industrialization, economic growth rates resulting in a huge increase in the volume of wastes generated daily in the countries with ineffectual and underfunded governments, and poverty prevent efficient management of wastes [2–4]. Another problem is that developing countries’ cities are characterized by unplanned, haphazardly constructed, sprawling slums with narrow roads that are inaccessible to collection vehicles [5, 6]. More so, there has been often a much smaller stock of environmental and social capital in developing countries. Urban solid waste management in Nigeria is constitutionally the responsibility of the third tiers of government, that is, the local government (Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999). Financial, material, and human resources that have been committed to waste management by this tier of government have not matched this responsibility. However, this has led to lack of effective waste management systems in urban areas of the country. As a result, most urban households resort to the haphazard dumping, burning or burying of solid waste. The common arrangement in the few urban communities where a system is in place is for waste management authorities to