Determinants of Solid Waste Management Practice in Gondar Town, Amhara Region” and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Master of Arts (MA) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality.

Abstract

Urbanization with inadequate waste management practices widespread disposal of waste in dumping inside the road and uncontrolled dump sites aggravates the problems in Ethiopia. This research paper presents a study on identifying the determinants of solid waste management practice in Gondar town, Amhara regional state. The collected data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics among 385 randomly selected household accomplished through questionnaires, field observations and focus group discussion. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the data Descriptive statistics using group and table for analyzing of the result, and the study also used the binary logistic regression model. The trends of solid waste disposal in the study area also showed increasing rate from the year 1999 up to 2019 with R 2 value of 15 %, the maximum and minimum annual average solid waste disposals was 36711 m3 in 2013 and 2893 m3 in 2005 respectively. The result showed about types of solid waste generated in household level, the residents reflect the most of the nine identified solid waste like food waste, paper and cardboard, yard wastes, dust, ash and fine sand, plastic, metal, textile, glass and ceramics and rubber and leather waste. Most of the residents response yes we are generating and less than 5% of respondent response no generate for each type of solid waste. The result show that about amount of each solid waste were paper and cardboard 79.2 % of respondent produce below 1 kg and 1.8% from 6-10 kg, and 90% of respondents produce below 1 kg waste for each waste type per day. The socio economic result for the determinant of solid waste management indicated that access to private solid waste collectors, awareness, willingness to pay to pay at 0.05 significance level, and other independent variable like education status, income, year stay also significant at 0.01 level of significance. The result of reuse and sold of solid waste indicated most of the respondents 82.3% dispose their waste without reusing, and 83.6% do not change their cloth wastes for plastic. The majority of the residents practiced improper solid waste management. Lack of adequate knowledge about solid waste management and not having access to door to door solid waste collection could have contributed to the reported improper solid waste practice. Therefore, there is a need to enhance the awareness of the community about proper SWM and to improve the door to door solid waste collection service by the town municipality.