Perception of residents on solid waste service provision in selected cities in Ghana
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Date
2009-08-11
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Abstract
The study assessed and compared residents' perception on the quality of solid waste service provision, cost recovery arrangements and waste minimisation practices in five selected cities in Ghana: Kumasi, Accra, Tema, Tamale and Sekondi-Takoradi. Residents' survey questionnaires of total sample size 1260 questionnaires from the cities were used for this study. The survey was conducted in the localities where the service providers render their services in the five cities.
The study revealed that the quality of waste collection service, as perceived by residents, was relatively high for the companies in Tamale than those in the other four cities. The study also revealed that the quality of waste collection service for Door-to- Door was relatively higher than that of communal collection across the five cities. Service quality for Door-to-Door collection were 63%, 65%, 60%, 79% and 63% for Kumasi, Accra, Tema, Tamale and Sekondi-Takoradi respectively, whiles that of communal collection were 51%, 53%, 55%, 57% and 50% for Kumasi, Accra, Tema, Tamale and Sekondi -Takoradi respectively. The study also revealed that 51% of the respondents indicated that they were not satisfied with the quality of service rendered by the companies while 49% also indicated that they were satisfied with the quality across the five cities.
Results of willingness-to-pay more, revealed that 36% of the respondents who were served with Door-to-Door collection services across the five cities indicated that they want the existing user charges to be maintained while 59% also indicated that they were willing to pay more for improved service. Interestingly only 4.7% of the respondents across the five cities indicated that they wanted to pay lower than what they are currently paying for Door-to-Door collection service. For respondents residing in localities where communal collection was practiced, their willingness to pay for improved services were 98%, 50%, 71.4%, 86.8%, 65.2% for Kumasi, Accra, Tema, Tamale and Sekondi -Takoradi respectively.
The study also revealed that 83% of the respondents interviewed, indicated that they were willing to go into source separation of waste, if companies were into waste recycle, while the remaining 17% also indicated that they were not willing to source separate waste. The study also revealed that 75% of the residents interviewed indicated that they re-use their waste(organic) for other domestic purposes such as feeding livestock with organic waste as well as fetching water with plastic containers whiles 25% also indicated that they do not re-use their waste for other domestic purposes.
It was recommended that, introduction of user charges for communal collection service should be considered by the government; to enhance the output of the companies who are into communal collection.
Description
Thesis submitted to The Department of Civil Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Science In Water Supply and Environmental Sanitation.