**1. Introduction**

 Municipal refers to a city, but when a city is very large it becomes a metropolis. According to [1] government performs two kinds of functions: (1) supply of goods and services within municipality and (2) conflict management. For instance, the sitting of garbage dump site can lead to conflict, which is to be resolved by the municipality. Other functions of a municipal government are police, fire protection, and street maintenance. In the area of conflict management municipal government takes care of the sitting of garbage dump sites within the city to prevent clash of residents over land ownership rights. The government also decides on the number of garbage collection per week, and the disposal mechanisms to ensure a clean and healthy city for people to live in.

 Waste on the other hand, is an unwanted residue that is no longer useful to the system, but useful to another system. Municipal solid wastes are non-liquid wastes that are by-products of manufacturing and processing industries that are within the city. Solid waste are every day materials and occur as follows: paper (50.7%), food waste (19.1%), metal (10.0%), glass (9.7%), wood (2.9%), textiles (2.6%), leather and rubber (1.9%) plastics (1.4%) and miscellaneous (1.7%). Lack of monitoring of waste movement in municipality can lead to indiscriminate disposal of waste, for example, waste is dumped without restriction in mangrove forest and rivers **Figure 1**. This is a problem that has been noticed in the course of our field work, but had remained unreported in the literature. This work is thus one of the first to report the problem of refuse disposal in mangrove forest in the Niger Delta. Mangroves are resilient [2, 3] and could withstand some level of pollution [4]. They are also a zone of high litter decomposition [5] as a result of the proliferation of microbial activities on forest floor [6]. This ability had made the mangroves to survive in the face of intense environmental pollution [4], but the effect of waste disposal on mangrove growth remains to be seen. This is because harmful heavy metals from non-biodegradable substances in the waste (e.g., plastics) can impede their growth. However, mangroves act as natural environmental biogeochemical barriers to pollutants generated in solid wastes disposal sites through mechanisms occurring at root level [7]. Mangrove roots produce oxygen to cope with the anaerobic condition of the soil. The creation of oxidized rhizosphere fixes heavy metal under non-available forms [8]. The large adventitious root system also restricts the movement and physical distribution of heavy metals. This prevents pollutant remobilization. Mangrove sediments effectively retain heavy metals by preventing migration. The heavy metals are prevented in the rhizosphere sediments under very refractory chemical forms, unable to be absorbed by plant roots. This thus, blocks the intoxication of the mangrove trees [7]. In addition mangroves root have a shutting down mechanism, which prevents the absorption and uptake of harmful pollutants, just as it shuts down the intake of excess salt when in saline environment.

#### **Figure 1.**

*Waste management strategy in cities in the Niger Delta, Nigeria. It shows the inefficiency in waste management leading to individualistic management resulting to mangrove forest and river pollution.* 

*Municipal Solid Waste Disposal in Mangrove Forest: Environmental Implication… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.83809* 

 The disposal of solid waste in mangrove forests and wetland areas is as a result of ignorance of its health effect. It is also due to overwhelming production of waste from highly populated city dwellers with little or no technology to handle the waste surge. High generation of waste is usually prevalent amongst the low income class people who generate more waste than they can handle, they thus resort to self-help by disposing the waste themselves into drains during rain fall, into river and in mangrove forest. This situation had been going on for many years, especially in areas of the city such as waterfront and coastal towns inhabited by people of low income class. Those living at the water front are not considered in municipal waste disposal planning. They are also not considered in the planning of waste collection within and around the city. Since they are left out, they manage their own waste by themselves. This is because the waste management design in the region is faulty, and is the cause of negative feedback of excess unmanageable waste, which litters the streets of the city (**Figure 1**). This chapter has identified some problems of effective waste management, and had proffered some solutions towards resolving them.
