3.1 Socio-demographic characteristics of the participants
Table 1 summarizes the socio-demographic characteristics. Majority of the respondents (50.4%), were aged 30 years above, 67.5% were female and 41.8% were either married or cohabiting. Most participants (52%) were of secondary level of education and only 1.3% had never attained school education. 28.1% of respondents were of the protestant religion, 59.7% lived with families of less than five and 46.8% had been residents for one to five years.
3.2 Solid Waste Management Practices Associated with Compliance with Guidelines
Compliance with guidelines was measured by scoring the respondent’s solid waste management practices against each of the following six standards; waste reduction, separation, re-use, recycling, composting and responsible disposal, table 2. Bivariate analysis was made between the practice variable and compliance with guidelines. The chi square test was done to obtain crude odds ratios between the independent variables and the outcome variable. Statistically significant independent variables at bivariate analysis were then subjected to a multi-variable logistics regression model to test for their significance, table 3.
Table 2: Solid waste management practices in compliance with guidelines
Study findings indicate that only 146 (37.9%) of the households complied with guidelines in managing their solid waste at source. From table 4 above, solid waste reduction (p=0.005), separation (p=0.001), re-use (p=0.001), composting (p=0.002) and responsible disposal (p=0.027) were all statistically significant factors of household solid waste management practices.
Majority of participants,63.9%, always took a shopping bag while going shopping but only 39.4% of these complied with general guidelines. 0.5% never carried a shopping bag while going shopping. Most of the households (73%) did not practice solid waste separation at source. Those who separated their waste were 2.2 times more likely to comply with guidelines compared with those who did not (Crude odds ratio (COR): 2.2, CI: 1.4-3.5). 80.3% of participants practiced re-use of some of the generated solid waste although, 57% of these failed to comply with general guidelines. Those who practiced re-use of some waste were 2.7 times more likely to comply with guidelines compared with those who did not practice (COR: 2.7, CI: 1.5-4.9).
Also, only 8.8% of households practice composting of some of the solid waste and most of these (55.9%) complied with general guidelines. Majority of those who did not practice composting (24.6%, p=0.040), did not have knowledge of solid waste composting. Although 41.1% of households practiced open burning as a solid waste disposal method, those who used the waste as animal feeds were 1.7 times more likely to comply with guidelines compared with those who practiced open burning (COR: 1.7, CI: 0.9-2.9, p=0.005).
3.3 Socio-demographic determinants of Solid Waste Management in Compliance with Guidelines
Determinants of compliance with guidelines in the management of solid waste at household level were established by asking related questions to participants and examining their socio-demographic characteristics. After entering responses in STATA, bivariate analysis was done, table 4.
Table 4: Socio-demographic determinants of solid waste management in compliance with guidelines
From table 4, gender (p=0.007), marital status (p=0.016), highest level of education (p<0.0001), major occupation (p=0.007), number of people living in the house (p=0.025), medium through which households were educated about proper solid waste management (p<0.0001), enforcement of proper of bi-laws (p=0.005), type of solid waste generated (p<0.0001) and solid waste storage method (p=0.009) were all significant determinants. Males were 0.5 times less likely to comply with guidelines compared with females (COR: 0.5, CI: 0.3-0.8). Most of the respondents were either married or cohabiting and that being of this marital status had 0.5 times less chances of complying with guidelines (COR: 0.5, CI: 0.3-0.9). Being of secondary, tertiary and the never schooled group, had 5.9, 4.7 and 3.1 times more chances of complying with guidelines compared with primary level of education respectively (COR: 5.9, CI (0.6-54.7); COR: 4.7, CI (2.5-9.2); COR: 3.1, CI (1.9-5.1)).Households with 5-10 and those with more than 10 people were 1.8 and 1.3 times more likely to comply with guidelines compared with households with less than five people (COR: 1.8, CI (1.2-2.7); COR: 1.3, CI (0.2-7.9)).
From key informant interviews presence of bi-laws was a determinant. One key informant said,
“[…] we held several community meetings to deliberate on solid waste management and came up with bi-laws which our members owned and are happy to abide by: for example, every household is required to have a sac or polythene bag to store their solid waste before the truck picks the waste […]”.
3.4 Attitudes of Participants about Household Solid Waste Management in Compliance With Guidelines
Attitudes were examined and scored on a Likert scale with highest score of five, for ‘very appropriate’, and lowest score of one, for ‘very inappropriate’ attitudes. Respondents who scored an average of 4 and above were considered to have enabling attitudes to comply with guidelines, table 5.
Majority of households (62.5%,) indicated that it was appropriate to carry a shopping bag whenever they went shopping, and only one respondent (0.3%) thought that it was very inappropriate. 53.8% indicated that it was appropriate to recycle. For the rest, majority thought it was not so appropriate to separate (49.9%), re-use (53.7%) and compost waste (57.1%,) respectively. Hence, the only practices in which participants had enabling attitudes with their mean score close to 4 were; waste reduction, with 64.6% responses scoring a mean of approximately 4 and waste recycling (65.2%).
3.5 Other Barriers of Solid Waste Management at Source Affecting Compliance with Guidelines
Barriers were examined by asking related questions to households, and interviews with key informants who were local council leaders
For the key informant interviews, an interview guide and a mobile phone recorder were used. Codes were generated from which themes emerged and among others, that of barriers: Migrations, both rural-urban and within the city and illegal dumping was a significant challenge to household solid waste management in the city.
Three of the respondents expressed concerns about lack of space to designate as official dump sites which encouraged some individuals to illegally dump waste. All four (4) respondents reported challenges of internal migrations in that some new migrants usually come with varying practices and attitudes towards solid waste management and that it would take them some time to adapt to the community bi-laws. A respondent said:
“[…] our community is very congested that even households lack where to temporarily store their waste which sometimes forces them to just throw their wastes anywhere, especially when the KCCA truck spends more than three days without coming to pick the waste […]”
Barriers to practicing composting of some of the solid waste statistically was significant (p=0.040). Lack of space, knowledge of how to compost and nearby composting facility were among the barriers cited by households.