Estimating sectoral pollution load in Lagos by Industrial Pollution Projection System (IPPS)

Sensitivity to environmental issues brought about increasing pressure from local community, groups, environmental organizations and government regulators on industries to reduce their pollutant emissions. In this study, Industrial Pollution Projection System (IPPS), which was developed by the Infrastructure and Environment Team of the World Bank, was used to estimate pollution load in ton/yr (with respect to employment) of industrial sectors in Lagos. The IPPS was developed to exploit the fact that the scale of industrial activity, its sectorial composition, and the process technologies, employed in production, heavily affect industrial pollution. Available data, from Manufacturerʹs Association of Nigeria (M.A.N.) for the years 1997–2002 was used for the estimation. From the cumulative ranking of the pollution load (ton/yr) estimate to all media (i.e. air, land, and water), Chemical and Pharmaceutical (CPH) sector is the highest polluting sector, followed by Basic Metal (BML), Domestic and Industrial Plastics (DIP), and Food, Beverage and Tobacco (FBT) sectors. Some of these sectors have the highest number of employees, and also appeared as the most polluting sectors in Lagos.