Assessing people's perceptions about their awareness on biodegradable wastes in Bwaise

Abstract

Despite efforts by government agencies, NGOs and CBOs aimed at improving people’s perceptions and awareness of biodegradable wastes, the status quo has remained or even worsened in area especially those in the slums and Bwaise there is no difference. The study was aimed at "Assessing people's perceptions about their awareness on biodegradable wastes in Bwaise" and it was guided by three specific objectives that were; to find out the types of biodegradable wastes generated in Bwaise; to determine the current biodegradable waste management practices that are being practiced in Bwaise as well as to assess the best biodegradable waste management practices that can be adopted by people in Bwaise. The study design was purely quantitative in nature and used a sample of 103 respondents randomly selected from the study area. The main tools of data collection included an open ended questionnaire and key informant interview guides. The data was analyzed using simple descriptive analyses in SPSS version 20 and Microsoft excel. The study findings showed that 41.3% of the biodegradable wastes generated in Bwaise are domestic, 31.5% consist of commercial waste where as 27.2% are agricultural wastes. The results further indicated that the current biodegradable waste management practices that are being practiced by people in Bwaise included; open burning, sorting, composting, briquette making etc and the best biodegradable waste management practices that are being used by people in Bwaise include collecting wastes and putting them directly on to KCCA and private company trucks, recycle wastes to make compost as well as molding briquettes, collecting wastes in polythene bags and then wait for garbage trucks to come and pick them, direct selling of agricultural wastes among others. More so, different people had different perceptions and awareness about generated biodegradable wastes in Bwaise and these were; sorting such wastes is time consuming, others don't care about such wastes, environmental or health risks associated such as cholera, bad odor where as other respondents said that they were aware about such wastes since some of the respondents reported that sorting such wastes is possible, they are easily recyclable. In conclusion, the study showed a positive perception and awareness about biodegradable wastes generated in Bwaise as evidenced by 14% of the respondents who reported that recycling such wastes is easy.