Households’ Perception and Management Practices on Urban Solid Waste in Robe Town, Bale Zone Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

With rapid development of the city the current condition of solid waste management service is becoming a challenge for municipalities. That means small proportions of the urban dwellers are served and a large quantity of solid waste left uncollected which in turn induced greater infrastructural demand, institutional setup and community participation for its management. The aim of the study was to assess households’ perception and management practices on urban solid waste in Robe town, Bale Zone Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia. Cross sectional descriptive survey research strategy was conducted in Robe town. Both quantitative and qualitative research approach was employed. Both primary and secondary data sources were used. To select sample Households, first two kebeles were purposively selected based on the severity of the problem and absence of waste disposal site in those kebeles. Then probabilistic proportionate to size technique was applied to determine the total sample household size from each kebele. Ultimately, a total of 374 sample household heads were selected by using simple random sampling technique. The result of the study shows that the mean and standard deviation is 2.99 and 1.16 respectively.  These shows as many of the respondents have low perception and the standard deviation value also indicates as their perceptions are highly deviating from the mean and one another. Hence, the urban households’ perception is quite low and uncomplimentary regardless of some of the factor, waste management practices is also very poor. Meanwhile, the result shows as some of the dwellers use private pit to store solid waste produced and most of them do not use any material to store waste most of the time. Hence, the municipality should establish central composting plant and give training to jobless youth who can change organic solid wastes and produce compost as a soil conditioner and also create livelihood for the urban poor in addition to educate and enforce solid waste management practice at household level to familiarize the community with positive perception towards solid waste management.

Keywords: Governance; Management; Perception; Practices; Robe; Waste

DOI: 10.7176/CER/11-11-03

Publication date: December 31^st 2019