Factors Influencing the Adoption of Treated Wastewater Use Among Communities in Ruai, Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

The Dandora Estate Sewage Treatment Works (DESTW) in Ruai, Nairobi County discharges approximately 80,000 m 3 /day of treated wastewater (TWW) into the Nairobi River without any planned option for use. There is also no policy guideline for use of TWW in Kenya. Yet, some people still use it directly or indirectly for their various livelihoods and in unsustainable ways (unplanned, unmanaged and unregulated). This could result in a number of risks, including public health, agronomic and environmental risks. This study investigated factors influencing the adoption of the TWW use among the communities in seven estates ( Sewage/IDP, Gituamba, Kamunyonge, Katworo, Bondeni, Dan Bull and By-pass ) that are close to the DESTW, despite the prevailing scenario. Cross-sectional survey design was adopted in the study where semi-structured questionnaires were used to collect data from 360 households who were selected using simple random sampling from the seven estates/strata. Raw data were analysed with the help of Statistical Package for Social Sciences [version 20] software for both descriptive statistics (percentages and frequencies) and inferential statistics (Odds Ratio, and Wald χ 2 ) for the prediction of adoption of TWW (dependent variable) using the independent variables. A multivariate logistic regression model identified gender (Wald χ 2 (1) = 5.31, p = .021), main occupation in general (Wald χ 2 (7) = 21.06, p =.004), farming [Wald χ 2 (1) =5.31, p =.021], dependency on wastewater (Wald χ 2 (1) = 40.59, p ˂ .000) and knowledge of organization regulating use of TWW (Wald χ 2 (2) = 6.76, p =.034) as statistically significant predictors of adoption of TWW use in Ruai. In the absence of a policy guideline for use of TWW in Kenya, the findings of the study provide requisite baseline data useful in formulating an appropriate policy and regulations for wastewater reuse schemes. Keywords: Adoption, Treated wastewater (TWW), livelihoods, Predictors, Logistic regression DOI: 10.7176/JEES/10-6-07 Publication date: June 30 th 2020