Assessment of Solid Waste Management at Source in Compliance With Guidelines Among Residents of Kawempe Division, Kampala, Uganda


 Background: Solid waste management poses a big challenge for many urban households, municipalities and cities, especially in developing countries, partly due to increasing urbanization. Overcrowding and informal settlements have emerged with illegal and indiscriminate waste disposal. Guidelines for proper management of solid waste are least observed at house hold level in such settings. The purpose of the study was to assess solid waste management at source in compliance with guidelines among residents of Kawempe municipality Kampala district. Methods: It was descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study design, with both quantitative and qualitative methods. 385 households heads and four local leaders were interviewed using researcher administered questionnaires and interview guide. Results: The study found that only 37.9% of households complied with guidelines for solid waste management at source. Factors of waste management practices were waste reduction (p=0.005), separation (p=0.001), reuse (p=0.001) and composting (p=0.027). Determinants such as gender (p=0.007), marital status (p=0.016), level of education (p<0.0001), occupation (p=0.007), household size (p=0.025), medium of community sensitization (p<0.0001), enforcement of bi-laws (p=0.005), type of waste generated (p<0.0001) and waste storage method (p=0.009) were implicated. Conclusion: Compliance with guidelines in the management of household solid waste at source was still very low within the city. Authorities ought to intensify household solid waste management awareness campaigns.


Background
Solid waste management (SWM) poses a big challenge for many urban households, municipalities and cities at large especially in the low income countries as a result of increasing urbanization (Mukama et al., 2016). It is projected that Sub-Saharan Africa will be the world's fastest-growing region for waste generation by 2050 due to increasing urbanization, yet it is poorly planned with ine cient solid wastes management strategies (Bello, et. al., 2016 andAryampa, et. al., 2019). In Kampala city, about 54% of the population in live in crowded and slum areas located mostly in low-lying zones and in wetlands with inevitable development of unplanned informal settlements and consequently illegal and indiscriminate waste disposal methods. These poor waste management strategies predispose households to environmental and health hazards including waterborne diseases such as typhoid, diarrhea, hepatitis and respiratory ailments (Cruvinel et al., 2019).Household solid waste include refuse of day-to-day leaving mainly organic biodegradable wastes, including peelings from raw foods, fruit and vegetables, food remains and leaves, paper, textile and yard waste (Komakech et al., 2014), and partially degradable waste like disposable napkins, wood and sanitary residues, and non-degradable waste including plastics, leather, rubbers, glass, metal and electronic waste.
Most developing economies in low-income countries like Uganda have re ned policies for SWM but residents reluctantly comply due to lack of enforcement of the policies/by-Laws and inadequate public education and awareness (Al-Khatib et al., 2010) cited in (McAllister, 2015). A study by Wadehra and Mishra (2017) in Delhi revealed a clear disconnect between the formulated household SMW guidelines by the authorities, the information being delivered to households and their practice in compliance with the guidelines. Whereas the guidelines and the knowledge of negative effects should be enabling the community members to reduce the generation of waste at source and to ensure proper disposal, individual households waste disposal practices largely don't conform to guidelines (Ishfaq, Puneet and Sukhwinder, 2021

Study Design
A descriptive and analytical cross-sectional study design was used with both quantitative and qualitative techniques, hence a mixed methods study.

Study Population
All households of Kawempe division preferably the heads of the respective households and the key informants were chosen among local council leaders.

Sample Size
Cochran formula for large populations (Cochran, 1977) was used: Where: n 0 = the required sample size Z 2 = the abscissa of the normal curve that cuts off an area α at the tails (1 -α equals the desired con dence level, 95% in this study) = 1.96, e = the level of precision (error), set at 5% or 0.05 for this study, p = estimated proportion of compliance with guidelines among households. We used a statistically conservative prevalence of 50% compliance with guidelines. q = 1-p.

Sampling Technique
The sample size was distributed proportionately across all the Parishes in Division. The number of households in each of the Parishes were obtained from the Division o ces and the sample from each parish was expressed as a proportion of the total study sample to obtain the number of respondents from each parish. The sampling interval for each parish was got by dividing the number of households by the sample from that particular parish. Systematic random sampling was then used where the pre-determined number of respondents per parish was attained. First respondent from each parish was selected randomly.

Data Collection Tools and Methods
A researcher-administered semi-structured questionnaire, an observational check list and interview guides for key informants were used. Both open and closed ended questions were included.

Data Entry, Analysis and Presentation
For quantitative data, the collected data were entered into Microsoft o ce excel 2019 for editing and cleaning then into STATA for analysis. Descriptive statistics was analyzed and presented in terms of frequencies and percentages in tables. The Chi-square test was used to determine the association between the two variables through bivariate analysis while odds ratios was used for the measure of association between the predictor and outcome variables for inferential statistics. Qualitative data were coded and transcribed, generating themes and sub-themes that were analyzed.

Ethical Approval
The required country ethical approval for the study was sought. Uganda Martyrs University Research Ethics Committee was quite helpful in the clearance. All other ethical requirements in research with human subjects have been adhered to, including but not limited to con dentiality, informed consent and voluntary participation.    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 bilaws 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 […]".

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 ve, 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, (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%).

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 signi cant challenge to household solid waste management in the city.
Three of the respondents expressed concerns about lack of space to designate as o cial 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 bilaws. 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 signi cant (p=0.040). Lack of space, knowledge of how to compost and nearby composting facility were among the barriers cited by households.

Conclusion
Compliance with guidelines in the management of household solid waste at source is still very low even in a municipality within the capital city and yet, proper practice of such basic social actions is very essential for the transformation of lives of the city dwellers. Noncompliance with guidelines leads to poor solid waste management which has been associated with diseases of unhygienic conditions like Cholera and environmental degradation through water and air pollution with consequent reduction in the biodiversity. This reduces the quality of life of the residents affecting their social and economic productivity due to ill health, and hence a vicious cycle of poverty. On the other hand, for a developing city like Kampala, residents scoring low on basic social skills, delays transition into a modern city. This deters potential foreign investments in the city and reduces foreign exchange and earnings, and ultimately affects national development.

Declarations ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The author acknowledges and appreciates support from Kawempe division public health o cials and local council leaders during data collection, and all our respondents.
CONTRIBUTORSHIP MP conceptualized the study, wrote the proposal and collected the data.