Analysis of Household Solid Waste Generation and Composition During The Covid-19 Pandemic In Padang City, Indonesia

Abstract

During the Covid-19 pandemic, community activities were carried out at home due to the implementation of work from home and school from home. This condition has an impact on the generation and composition of the waste produced. This study analyzes household waste's generation and composition during the Covid-19 pandemic in Padang City and compares it with conditions before the pandemic. Measurement of the generation and composition of household waste is carried out directly by respondents, and the results are sent via a questionnaire on the google form. Respondents consisted of 140 households spread across each sub-district in Padang City and were divided based on income levels, namely 83 High Income (HI) households, 50 Medium Income (MI) households, and 7 Low Income (LI) households. Measurements are carried out for eight consecutive days when the Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB) are implemented. From the measurement results, it was found that household waste generation ranged from 1.38 kg/day - 2.70 kg/day, with the units of generation for HI, MI, and LI households respectively 0.587 kg/person/day, 0.387 kg/person/day and 0.256 kg/person/day. It is found that the waste generation increase doubles that of the generation before the Covid-19 pandemic when compared with the previous generation of household waste research of Hafiz (2016) The increase, especially for HI and MI households. However, there was no significant change in the composition of waste between before and when the pandemic occurred. The composition of household waste is still dominated by food waste and plastic waste, which have increased their percentage to 68.77% and 18.07%, respectively, during the Covid-19 pandemic.