Study on the Method of Household Waste Collection: Case Study

Abstract

This article presents research on how household waste is collected. An online survey, with 348 participants, from the Romanian region of Bacau, was conducted from October 2018 to May 2019. The online questionnaire included a set of over 40 questions, some with the aim of identifying the nature of the people participating, but most of the questions being designed to determine the collection methods for household waste. The major goal of the current study, as previously stated, was to determine the primary way of collecting household garbage from the public, while also learning various details about the participants, including their residence location, gender, age, and level of education. Referring to the means used for collecting household waste, the following items were noted: trash cans, cardboard boxes, dumpsters, and raffia bags. As a result of the study carried out, the following conclusions were drawn: it was noticed that 70 percent of those who participated in the survey came from urban areas; a larger percentage of female respondents took part in the survey (128 from 348); the majority of respondents were aged 18–29 (182); 178 respondents had a higher education level; collection of household waste in garbage bags represented 62.9 percent of the total collection methods. Following statistical processing of the data, and an overview of the main ways in which household waste was collected, a number of connections were found between the characteristics of the respondents and their household waste collection. What is noteworthy is that the characteristics of the respondents could be grouped into cumulative factors that played an important role in household waste collection: the first group formed by level of education and location of the respondents, and the second group formed by age and gender of the respondents.