By Abdulkareem Mojeed
Although most agricultural emissions come from clearing forests for farms, methane from livestock and rice production, and nitrous oxide…
Friday Effiong wipes his face with the back of his palms to clean a simmering sweat as he struggles to separate the fleshy part of a cow leg from its bones with a machete. A customer awaits the product of this labour.
The impact of the heavy rain that fell that Tuesday morning was already telling on his face due to poor sales, but that did not discourage him from expressing his displeasure about the unhygienic condition of the Abak Central Abattoir in Akwa Ibom.
“As you can see, this is where we dump the wastes from the slaughterhouse,” Mr Effiong told PREMIUM TIMES, pointing at the gastric waste, about 20 metres high mixed with bones from slaughtered cattle that had been deposited for weeks and months.
He bemoaned the unhygienic environmental condition of the abattoir, pointing at the broken slabs and ceilings, saying they also do not have adequate water supply in the slaughterhouse.
“Even the septic tank here is bad, we need the government to help fix it,” he added.
Agriculture, forestry and land use account for about a quarter of the greenhouse gas emissions driving the devastating impacts of climate change in Africa. Although the largest agricultural emissions come from land conversion, such as clearing forests for farms, methane from livestock and rice production, and nitrous oxide from the use of synthetic fertilisers, little or no attention is paid to animal waste as a source of greenhouse gas.
In 2020, over 3 million cattle were slaughtered in Nigeria. However, slaughter-house wastes (a large proportion of which are faeces from emptied intestines) generated from abattoirs are oftentimes not disposed properly or recycled to prevent environmental hazards.
As the waste decomposes, harmful biogases are released. The two major greenhouse gases associated with slaughterhouses are methane and nitrous oxide.
According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a tonne of animal waste produces over 100 cubic metres of biogas has a concentration of 65 per cent methane (CH4) and 35 per cent carbon dioxide (CO2), both of which are among the five notorious greenhouse gases contributing to global warming.
The UNFCCC said methane has a potency of about 21 times that of carbon dioxide in terms of trapping atmospheric heat, translating to about 1500 cm3 of greenhouse gases emitted from dumpsite in every 15000 kg waste per day.
The Nigerian government in its updated Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) submitted to the UNFCCC in July last year proposed to mitigate four greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), as against the three GHG (CO2, CH4 and N2O) proposed in the previous NDC submitted.
However, there seems to be no clear implementation plans or effective regulations to curb GHG emissions from abattoirs across states in the country.
By implication, improper disposal of wastes from slaughterhouses and lack of climate-smart facilities in most abattoirs across the country pose public health risks, degrade the environment and also facilitate the emission of gases such as methane, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide among others, driving climate change effects.
Animal waste – emitters of greenhouse gases
Greenhouse gases are gases that absorb heat energy emitted from earth’s surface and reradiate it back to the ground causing the warming of the earth – global warming.
In the slaughterhouses visited by PREMIUM TIMES, it was observed that environments where these abattoirs are sited face air pollution— mostly from the roasting of cow skins, decomposing piled-up faeces, spilled blood and poor drainage systems. This makes workers and residents prone to zoonotic pathogens infection.
PREMIUM TIMES visited the Abak and Uyo Central abattoir, both in Akwa Ibom State, south-south Nigeria.
On entering these abattoirs, there is glaring evidence of a failed and a broken system that can be felt from the stench in the atmosphere.
This is largely due to a lack of effective and efficient slaughtering and processing…
