Abstract
Rapid population growth and increase of economic activities combined with a lack of training in modern solid waste management practices complicate the efforts to improve the solid waste services. Poor waste management has led to indiscrimin ate dumping of solid waste into open spaces and drainages, blocking drains and causing flooding, environment pollution and public health issues. Collecting fees from the public can support finance for improving waste management service. This study intended to evaluate willingness to pay (WTP) of households for improved solid waste collection service in two selected zones of Kalmunai municipal council area. The survey covered 140 households using a stratified simple random sampling method from two selected zones. This study used a contingent valuation method to elicit households’ WTP and multiple linear regression models to determine factors influencing WTP. The household willingness to pay was significantly affected by gender, education, average income, householder’s concern about environment and cost of collecting 1 kg of waste. Gender and education were statistically significant at p<0.05, average income and cost of collecting 1kg of waste were statistically significant at p<0.1 and householder’s concern about environment was statistically significant at p<0.01. The results of this study show that the mean willingness to pay of households to organic/kitchen waste and plastic/paper waste was LKR 2.8/kg and LKR 2.63/kg, respectively.
Highlights
Municipal solid waste management (SWM) is a worldwide problem and it is becoming more and more complicated (Singh et al, 2011)
The regressors include age of the household head in years, gender of the household head, educational level measured by number of years spent in the school, marital status, household size, household total monthly income (LKR/month), degree of concern about environment, weight of household waste, views of service quality provided by Kalmunai Municipal Council (KMC), and perceived cost of collecting 1 kg of waste
This study was conducted in Kalmunai municipality of Ampara where SWM service is restricted by the limited resources
Summary
Municipal solid waste management (SWM) is a worldwide problem and it is becoming more and more complicated (Singh et al, 2011). The accelerated growth of urban population with unplanned urbanization, increasing economic activities and lack of training in modern solid waste management practices in the developing countries complicate the efforts to improve solid waste services (Asian Institute of Technology, 2004). This has led to indiscriminate dumping of solid waste into open spaces and drainages, blocking drains and causing flooding, environment pollution and public health issues. The site that we are focusing falls in the DS division with the highest population density in Sri Lanka, but an efficient and effective waste collection system is missing This is mainly due to the inability to cost and price the economic basis of such a system. Investigating a payment system for waste collection is addressed in this study for a selected sample of households using a contingent valuation approach
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