ECO COSMOPOLITANISM AND REFUSE SURFING: LOCATING THE LAGOS EXPERIENCE THROUGH SOME SELECTED POEMS

 

 ¹OLUSEYE ABIODUN BABATUNDE, ²CHARLES OGBULOGO

¹Mr. Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, NIGERIA, festalbee@gmail.com

²Prof. Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State, NIGERIA, Charles.ogbulogo@covenantuniversity.edu.ng

 

Abstract

Refuse or waste management has become a major social problem besetting many urban and cosmopolitan cities especially in developing countries. Environmental pollution arising from poor refuse production, disposal and management in Lagos as in many urban centres of the world has become a veritable source of ecological deterioration threatening human and urban lives. The open dumping and refuse incineration approach has turned Lagos into a behemoth site of refuse thus making waste littering a permanent landmark feature of the state as wastes are spotted virtually everywhere in the cosmopolitan. Poor refuse disposal endangers biotic and abiotic relations thus engendering and festering germs and diseases communicable in all forms of human contacts i.e. in homes, buses, planes, markets, and offices among others. The Lagos environment seems so largely polluted that bacteria and viruses can be easily contracted.  Yet this problem is a global one as the Planet Earth has become an interwoven complex set of eco systems where refuse production and management has spiralling effects on the world global belonging. For instance polluted air can move across territories in the same vein people transmit germs and diseases across the globe. Eco- cosmopolitanism envisions that human and nonhuman kinds are part of the planetary ‘imagined communities’ yet giving vent to ‘glocalisation’ and allegiance to national communities. While some Lagosians seem to have become attached and tied to the ‘naturalness’ of Lagos putrefaction, can we say the same of the many visitors who come into Lagos daily? Lagos as a cosmopolitan shares its impurities with other world citizens and cities. This paper therefore argues that the solution to the refuse management should be a shared one among the planetary communities of the world.

Keywords: refuse, environmental pollution, germs, Lagos, biotic, abiotic, eco - cosmopolitanis