Are households willing to pay for full-cost solid waste collection? Evidence from Kumasi Metropolis of Ghana

Abstract

Solid waste generation and its collection have become a major concern of town planning authorities in recent years as a result of increased population and consumption levels. As part of efforts to improve solid waste collection delivery in the city of Kumasi, full payments by residents have been considered to curb the increasing quantum of money being spent on collection delivery. Are households willing to pay for this service? The authors employed double-bound contingent valuation method to determine the households' willingness to pay for the full cost of solid waste collection in the Kumasi metropolis of Ghana which generates an approximately 1,000 tons of solid waste per day. The paper established that, presently, households would be unwilling to pay for the full-cost solid waste collection service. The paper further found out that the key socio-economic factors that could influence the payment of this service by the households were the age, gender, employment, income (price bid), and education.