## 3 Results
### Bacterial Composition of Different Informal Dump Sites  
Phylum-level analysis of the bacterial community composition revealed the presence of eight major bacterial phyla (Figure 1A). In all samples except ID1, sequences from the phylum _Actinobacteria_ were the most dominant, followed by those from the phyla _Proteobacteria_, _Firmicutes_, _Chloroflexi_, _Acidobacteria_, _Planctomycetes_, _Bacteroidetes_, and _Gemmanationadetes_. Bacterial sequences recovered from the litter-free zone (ID1) belonged to the phyla _Proteobacteria_ (46.5%), _Actinobacteria_ (41%), and _Chloroflexi_ (40%). Other notable phyla include _Acidobacteria_ (2.5%), _Firmicutes_ (1.9%), and _Planctomycetes_ (1.6%). In other samples, _Actinobacteria_ was the most dominant phylum, with a relative abundance of between 42.7% in sample ID3 to 62.34% in sample ID5. The second most dominant phylum was _Proteobacteria_, whose relative abundance was 34.3%, 36.87%, 21.91%, and 24.13% in samples ID2, ID3, ID4, and ID5 respectively. Other major phyla were distributed as follows; _Firmicutes_ (1.5% in sample ID6 to 18.09% in sample ID4), _Chloroflexi_ (1.23% in sample ID2 to 6.53% in sample ID3), _Acidobacteria_ (0.1% in sample ID5 to 2.95% in sample ID3), _Planctomycetes_ (0.1% in sample ID5 to 3.49% in sample ID3), and _Gemmatimonadetes_ (0.3% in sample ID2 to 1.16% in sample ID4). The distribution of the bacterial minor phyla detected in the different informal dump site soils is provided in Supplementary Table S1. At the class level, 10 taxa were the most prevalent with discernible variations across the collected samples (Figure 1B). With the exception of ID1, unclassified _Actinobacteria_ dominated all samples, with relative abundances ranging from 36.46% (ID3) to 61.55% (ID5), followed by _Alphaproteobacteria_ (10.3% in ID2 and 29.65% in ID3). On the other hand, ID1 reflected the opposite trend, with _Alphaproteobacteria_ (41%) being the most dominant class, followed by unclassified Actinobacterial (35.43%) members. A large percentage of _Gammaproteobacteria_ sequences (20.68%) were recorded in ID2 compared to 1.03% reported in ID4. _Bacilli_ was the fourth most abundant class, with a relative abundance ranging from 1.05% (ID6) to 17.95% (ID4), followed by _Acidimicrobia_ (0.35-5.64%), _Rubobacteria_ (0.07-3.84%), _Thermoleophilia_ (0.18-3.75%), _Betaproteobacteria_ (1.64-3.02%), and _Deltaproteobacteria_ (0.21-2.49%). The distribution and relative abundance of minor bacterial classes in the six informal dump site soils is provided in Supplementary Table 2.  
Analysis at the genus level revealed that 1268 distinct bacterial genera were present across all samples. Of these, 54 genera had 1% relative abundance in at least one sample (Figure 2), while the rest had less than 1% relative abundance and were thus classified as minor genera. Each sampling site had a distinct dominant genus. For instance, the ID1-litter free zone had _Microvirga_ (11.59%), _Blastococcus_ (8.72%), _Nocardioides_ (4.18%), _Marmoricola_ (2.53%), _Skermanella_ (2.47%), and _Actinoplanes_ (2.01%) as the dominant genera. The motor vehicle garage dump site (ID2) was dominated by _Pseudomonas_ (17.11%), _Gordonia_ (14.21%), _Williamsia_ (13.16%), _Rhodococcus_ (10.25%), _Nocardioides_ (5.28%), and _Acinetobacter_ (2.19%), whereas the train station dump site (ID3) had genus _Amaricoccus_ (5.67%), _Nocardioides_ (5.01%), _Nakamurella_ (4.55%), _Skermanella_ (3.79%), _Blastococcus_ (3.12%), _Microbacterium \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Sample** & **Quality Reads** & **Observed OTUs** & **ACE** & **CHAO** & **Shannon** & **Simpson** & **Good’s Coverage (\%)** \\ \hline ID1 & 41,026 & 5658 & 6098 & 5808 & 7.29 & 0.00 & 98.04 \\ ID2 & 21,886 & 2364 & 2700 & 2502 & 5.57 & 0.02 & 97.72 \\ ID3 & 36,727 & 5058 & 5610 & 5308 & 7.41 & 0.00 & 97.56 \\ ID4 & 37,906 & 4605 & 5048 & 4784 & 6.99 & 0.00 & 98.00 \\ ID5 & 12,475 & 1595 & 1923 & 1767 & 6.05 & 0.01 & 96.74 \\ ID6 & 22,370 & 2850 & 3364 & 3137 & 6.55 & 0.01 & 96.88 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}