Economic valuation of community solid waste management practices in Jinja municipality :

Abstract

Developing Countries are still struggling with solid waste collection and management; Uganda is no exception. Solid waste is waste generated and discarded as useless or unwanted from activities in homes, institutions, public and commercial places, industries, though it is also a resource for reuse, recycle, and recovery. Respondents in Jinja municipality were interviewed from the three divisions but central division with 30 respondents because it is the busiest and major solid waste generator. The objectives were; to analyze the reasons for household methods of managing the solid waste that they generate, to analyse the social and economic problems arising from the nature of solid waste facilities.at the locations for solid waste collection in residential and business centres, to determine the residents' willingness to pay for collection services of solid waste generated in their homes. Non-probability sampling techniques purposive, accidental and convenience sampling were used in obtaining interview respondents, inclusive of contingent valuation method where respondents were asked their willingness to pay through the interview guides. Data was analysed using excel analysis where comparisons were presented using clustered bar graphs that described the relationships between the dependent and independent variables. 99% of the respondents possessed storage containers, and 44.5% used plastic made containers, while 37.5% of the representative population located the containers in their compounds giving reasons of preventing bad smell with 23.5% responding to the case. 72.9% of interviewed respondents had a view that the municipal council should provide the storage containers but 62.9% of them had storage containers bought by self. 18.7% of the respondents said that the solid waste collection site was a source of employment and 20.69% of them responded to the stench problem as the major challenge affecting the collection site. 80% respondents were willing to pay between shs.2000-5000 for the monthly solid waste collection services whilst 50% of them were willing to accept payment for handling own solid waste of above shs.150000.