The contribution of small accommodation enterprises to sustainable solid waste management

Abstract

Research on small accommodation enterprises’ contribution to sustainable solid waste management remains scarce. The study addresses this gap by examining the contribution of small accommodation enterprises to sustainable solid waste management in Ghana. Employing a constructivist approach to explore the issue of solid waste management in a developing country context, the current study involved interviews with 26 small accommodation owner-managers on their solid waste management practices illuminating their contribution to the growing need for sustainable solid waste management practices. Purposive sampling was employed to ensure that only small accommodation owner-managers in the region participated in the study. Based on the value-belief-norm (VBN) theory and sustainable solid waste management model, the findings revealed the existence of highly dominant social paradigm beliefs that emanate from the prevalence of altruistic and egoistic values. Consequently, awareness of the consequence of solid waste management practices to the environment is limited as many were not conscious of the connection between solid waste management and the environment. In this way, some actions were good practices that could be described as sustainable contributions while others were not. Some of the sustainable contributions included economically affordable and socially-acceptable practices such as waste minimization, reuse, sorting, feeding animals and controlled disposal of waste. However, other practices were environmentally ineffective due to a lack of biospheric values and a lack of awareness of the consequences of those actions on the environment. These results imply that many small enterprise owner-managers are more concerned about the economic affordability and socio-cultural acceptability of solid waste management at the expense of environmental effectiveness. Therefore, practices may be undertaken without a critical evaluation of their impact on the environment. The implications of these findings have been discussed.