Assessment of Municipal Solid Waste Management Service in Dessie Town
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Date
2011-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study is aimed at the overall assessment of the existing MSWM service in Dessie town. Besides this, the study had also specific objectives such as investigation of households’ solid waste generation rate, physical composition and management practices, the existing status and spatial coverage of MSWM, and current institutional arrangement and capacity of MSWM service delivery of the town. In order to accomplish these objectives, the researcher used both primary and secondary sources. The primary data were gathered through questionnaires, interviews, field measurement, and field observations. Whereas secondary data were extracted from different published and unpublished materials. The analysis of this paper was carried out using both
qualitative and quantitative techniques.
The findings of this study revealed that the present system of MSWM in Dessie town entirely relied on the municipality which provided the full range of waste collection, transportation and disposal service. But, the provision of this service is not kept in pace with the town solid waste generation.
Based on the findings of this research, the town households’ dominantly produced biodegradable
solid wastes (75.6%) with generation rate of 0.231kg/person/day. This made the daily total solid waste generation of households to 100.91 (37337.223kg). Together with other four solid waste
sources the total daily solid waste generation of the town is about 136.11(50360.7kg) but only 32 (23.51%) of this is collected and disposed to the town disposal site. So that MSWM of the town is found in very low status and spatial coverage. This poor status of MSWM is also intensified by three critical factors. The first one is poor institutional structure and capacity of Sanitation,
Beautification and Parks Development Department. The second shortcoming is limited participation and contribution of stakeholders’ i.e. unsatisfactory participation of communities, no collaboration of various CBOs and NGOs, no private sector involvement, very limited contribution of MSSE, solid
waste miners and handcrafts of Dessie town. The third constraint is poor households’ solid waste management practices resulted from improper handling of solid waste storage materials, low level of solid waste separation and resource recovery activities, and illegal solid waste disposal system.
Therefore, the best ways that used to tackle the above problems are: execution of sustainable solid waste management systems (reuse, recycle, composting, and incineration) through awareness creation and training, improvement of SBPDD institutional structure and capacity, and implementation of integrated MSWM approach which recognizes and comprises all stakeholders
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Geography and Environmental Studies