Zamfara
Lead Poisoning Epidemic and Socio-Technological Intervention of Ahmadu Bello
University, Zaria II
Cleaning the Bagega lead poisoning was an
arduous task that needs to be accomplished on sustainable manner. ENACTUS (Entrepreneurship
Action and Us) branch of Ahmadu Bello University accorded high level of
seriousness to the Begega Lead poisoning cleaning project. The first activity
of the project was the conduct of needs assessment of the Bagega community, to
inspect and ascertain the level of damage done by the Lead poisoning in the
area.
Consequently, ENSCTUS involved experts
within the university to develop a project, which should be promising, cost –
effective, sustainable and inclusive of the beneficiaries. The aim of the
project is not only to clean the environment but also filter the water, which
is the medium for conveying the lead into the bodies of animals and human
beings. This means that the solution should remove the lead trace from the soil
as well as from the water. One of the promising technologies is the use of
Jatropha plants to remove the traces of lead from the soil. Thus, the ENACTUS team
developed a Jatropha Energy Scheme in the area. Jatropha plant has many uses in
today's world. Each and every part of the plant is useful in some ways. Even
the seed cake produced as a by-product is used as an excellent organic
fertilizer. Some parts of the plant are used for medical purposes. The most
common known use of Jatropha is biofuel as an alternative to the diesel oil.
The jatropha oil has advantageous physicochemical with unique characteristic
similar to the fossil diesel. So vehicles can use this oil with little change
in their design. Fortunately, Jatropha plant being a drought - tolerant crop is
commonly found in northern Nigeria grown as shrubs or fenced crops. The plant
is able to survive on degraded land, often poor and fragile soils. Jatropha has
the ability to facilitate sequestration, uptake, translocation, and
detoxification of pollutants. It has the ability of extracting heavy metals,
like Lead, from the soil. And in recent times, Jatropha has been used in mine
tailing, which is used to begin a more natural process of remediation of
contaminated soils. It is this discovery that made the team to explore the use
of Jatropha to clean the land from lead toxicity, which was and is still
affecting the people through plant consumption.
Jatrropha
plants were massively planted in the affected areas where they gradually and
effectively clean the land from lead contamination. While this was going on,
the team begins to create solution to the problem on contaminated water as well
as creating job alternatives to discourage the habitants from involvement in
unprofessional and illegal mining, which brings lead contamination in the
environment. Similarly, people were discouraged from farming activities in
contaminated land until it is completely cleaned by the Jatropha Energy Scheme.
The Team created a biotech-filter for
solving the lead poisoning challenge and provided clean portable drinking water
to the growing population. How was this done? Removal of lead from industrial
processes can be classified into several categories. Some of the most effective
methods to remove lead from contaminated water are precipitation, stabilization
ion exchange and adsorption. The most important characteristics of water
filters are strength, precision, efficiency, clean-ability and longevity, which
make them unique to perform their designed functions. The biotech filters
acquire these characteristics in addition to the ability to combine three types
of filtering system; physical, chemical and activated carbon. Imagine how wastewater
is filtered. The common system permits wastewater drips down from the tank at
the top, passes through vegetation, which removes nutrients, organic matter,
some kinds of pollution, and some bacteria, before dripping down through sand,
charcoal, and gravel filters. The cleaner water is collected for reuse in
another tank at the bottom of the filtering system.
ABU ENACTUS biotech filter was designed
based on using activated charcoal, produced from charcoal and coconut shell, as
an adsorbent medium for heavy metals such as lead, through filtration. The filter
is made up of three basic layers; activated charcoal (carbon), dechlorine and
zeolites for the purification of water. The activated charcoal was obtained
from the dehydration and carbonization of coconut shells, in an airtight
furnace to burn at a temperature of 950oC to expand the pores of
surface of the coconut shells. Dechlorine was used in adding lost nutrients
that might be extracted during this whole process and also to kill bacteria
found in the water. Zeolites are more of the same as Bio balls but aid more in
enhancing the chemical filtration of the water. Zeolites are large group of
minerals consisting of hydrated aluminosilicates of sodium, potassium, calcium,
and barium. They can be readily dehydrated and rehydrated and are used as
cation exchangers and molecular sieves. Zeolites can be naturally found,
however dechlorane were produced in laboratories. How the biotech filter works?
Water is passed through the filter capsule,
firstly through the dechlorine layer to act on bacteria, then it moves on to
the activated charcoal layer where it would attract heavy metal contaminants
and biological agents. Then it goes finally to the zeolite where the final
action takes place. These filters were tested to effectively removed of heavy
metal contaminants from water, which the water safe for domestic uses as well
as for irrigation purposes. What is the
post – project activities that will prevent the inhabitants engaging in mining?
The
post – project activities were sourcing better income generating enterprises
than mining. Thus, the Team was able developed an aquaponic system This is a
system which allows integration of aquaculture (growing of fresh fish) and cultivation
of plants using a nutrient rich solution and artificial UltraViolet light (UV
light) without the use of soil. The crops produced were fresh tomatoes,
cucumber and hot pepper while growing fish simultaneously in the same
environment. This aquaponic system was done in collaboration with the National
Bio-Technological Development Agency (NBDC). NBDC provided a Resource person
and technical support for the building of the aquaphonic system while the
United for Climate Change (UCC) provided building materials for the green house
farm where the team planted tomato, pepper and cucumber crops and started
growing over 150 catfish juveniles.
The system creates a robust agro-allied
enterprise among the people thereby upgrading subsistent farming activities.
This new enterprise in the community subsequently reduced poverty,
unemployment, and hunger while generating additional income to the people. In
addition, an awareness campaign was mounted alongside a sensitization workshop
from Health organizations, and safer mining policy formulation with Federal and
State Mining Corporations and legal entities, which further reduced the
frequency of lead poisoning cases, providing a greener environment for life
within the community.
The project was concluded with production
and distribution of Biotech filters to over 50 families in the community to
have qualitative and safe water for domestic purposes, which was free from
heavy metal contaminants. The team then went ahead to build a Rural Water Hub
with the Bio-Filter put in place to filter the water to provide clean and
portable water for more members of the Begega community of Zamfara State.
Despite the prodigious challenges common
with large universities like ABU Zaria, the university was able to make a
gigantic intervention to lead poisoning epidemic in Zamfara state through
ENACTUS. The result of this intervention clearly demonstrates the ability of
the ABU Zaria to effectively address the societal problems when and wherever
such problems exist. The project made ABU ENACTUS Team to win the 2017 ENACTUS
National Championship in Lagos, before the world-class judges. Similarly, the
project won the LEKOIL most Environmentally Sustainable Project challenge. The
ENACTUS ABU team represented Nigeria at the ENACTUS World Cup in London, UK in
September 2017 with fruitful outcome.
In conclusion, to make the ABU Zaria
intervention more beneficial to the affected people of Zamfara state, it is
pertinent that government and other relevant agencies should upscale the pilot
project of Begega to other communities. Certainly, ABU Zaria is always a
willing partner in venture.
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