The effect of disposing municipal waste on soil was evaluated by analyzing the microbiological and
enzyme activity of soil samples at three different locations, from five municipal waste dumpsites and compared with soil
samples from a farmland which serves as the control. Soil microbial load, physicochemical parameters and enzyme
activities were determined using standard procedure. The highest heterotrophic bacterial count (1.02 ± 0. 4 × 10
7
cfu/g)
was recorded from New Benin market Dumpsite (sampling point A) while the least (3.25 ± 0.4 ×10
4
cfu/g) was from the
control (sampling point C). The result obtained showed that there was significant difference (p> 0.05) in the
Heterotrophic bacteria and fungi count between the control and the soil samples from the various locations of the
dumpsites. The bacteria identified were
Acinetobacter species,
Micrococcus luetus
,
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
,
Serratia
species,
Bacillus subtilis
,
Klebsiella
species,
Staphylococcus aureus
,
Arthrobacter
species,
Escherichia coli
and
Streptococcus feacalis
, while fungi identified were
Aspergillus niger
,
Trichoderma
species,
Penicillium
species,
Fusarium
species,
Mucor
species,
Saccharomyces
species,
Rhizopus
species.
Pseudomonas aeruginosa was the most
prevalent bacterial isolate (20.3 %) while
Streptococcus feacalis was the least isolate (3.1 %).
Aspergillus niger was the
most prevalent fungi isolate and
Fusarium species the least isolated fungi. The enzymatic profile revealed that Oba
market and Satana market had the highest Dehydrogenase and Urease activities with the values of 23.70 ± 16.32
mg/g/6h and 97.90 ± 14.93 mg/g/24h respectively. The physicochemical parameter measured in this study showed that
the soil samples were acidic (5.60 ± 0.17 – 6.23 ± 0.35) and sandy (72.20 ± 4.11 - 90.60 ± 0.00 %). Trace amount of
zinc (0.10 ± 0.00 – 1.53 ± 1.02 mg/kg), lead (< 0.01 – 1.23 ± 0.17 mg/kg) and copper (0.01 ± 0.00 – 0.80 ± 0.10 mg/kg)
was observed in both the control soil and the test samples. The result showed that although municipal waste dump is an
unsustainable practice, it has a positive impact on the quality of the soil samples examined.
