Determinants of household waste disposal practices and implications for practical community interventions: lessons from Lilongwe

Kalonde, Patrick Ken, Austin, Alick Chisale, Mandevu, Treaser, Banda, Prince Justice, Banda, Andsen, Stanton, Michelle ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1754-4894 and Zhou, Mengshi (2023) 'Determinants of household waste disposal practices and implications for practical community interventions: lessons from Lilongwe'. Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability, Vol 3, Issue 1.

Preview

Text pdf.pdf - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

Open waste disposal has a negative effect on local ecology, economy, and public health. Understanding factors influencing waste disposal decisions is necessary for developing solutions to curb open waste disposal. This paper discusses the associations between household’s social demographic and spatial characteristics with preference for domestic waste disposal. The paper also utilizes this knowledge practical community action. This was achieved by gathering and examining a novel dataset of the waste disposal patterns of 200 randomly chosen households in Malawi. We observed that households were likely to dispose of their waste openly when the residential unit was closer to an existing open waste disposal site. A multinomial logistic regression model showed that the likelihood of choosing waste disposal methods, such as private garbage collection services, is higher when the household head is a woman, the housing unit is owned by the occupants, or in situations where a fence is present around the housing unit. We presented these findings to the neighborhood community development committee. A short-term community waste management plan was created using a participatory community planning approach. The plan included co-designing waste disposal solutions with landlords, setting up community waste bylaws, and intensifying civic education activities. In conclusion, our study provides insights into the factors that influence households’ disposal behavior. This unique case study highlights a potential approach for developing waste management policies using a bottom-up approach.

Item Type:	Article
Subjects:	WA Public Health > WA 30 Socioeconomic factors in public health (General) WA Public Health > WA 4 Works on general hygiene
Faculty: Department:	Biological Sciences > Vector Biology Department
Digital Object Identifer (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1088/2634-4505/acbcec
SWORD Depositor:	JISC Pubrouter
Depositing User:	JISC Pubrouter
Date Deposited:	21 Mar 2023 12:44
Last Modified:	21 Mar 2023 14:12
URI:	https://archive.lstmed.ac.uk/id/eprint/22091

Statistics

View details

Actions (login required)

Edit Item