Implementing biowaste source segregation for sustainable decentralized composting schemes in Tiassalé, southern Côte d’Ivoire

Research in sub-Saharan Africa has shown failures in most of municipal waste composting initiatives because of bad-quality composts due to the lack of biowaste source segregation. Until now, very few biowaste source-segregation initiatives have been carried out on this part of the world. This study aimed at assessing the biowaste sorting efficiency and the attitude of households towards a pilot biowaste source-segregation system linked to a decentralized composting plant in Tiassalé. For this purpose, the impurity rate of source-segregated biowaste was monitored through the first year of implementation. Then, a cross-sectional survey was conducted to evaluate households’ attitude. The results have shown that the average impurities rate in source-segregated biowaste was very low (1%). This finding was confirmed by the results of laboratory analysis which revealed a very low heavy metals (0.2, 12.4, 7.1 and 15.5 mg kg −1 DS for Cd, Cr, Ni and Pb, respectively) contamination in the compost produced. Regarding the acceptability of the source-segregation system, the results showed that the majority (75%) of the participants accepted the source-segregation system of biowaste and almost half (47%) of them were ready to pay for such a collection service. In conclusion, this study revealed that providing households with the needed municipal solid waste management infrastructures and rising awareness about biowaste source segregation are keys for the establishment of such a collection system in Tiassalé and similar urban areas. The findings also proved the effectiveness of biowaste source-segregation system in the production of high-quality compost.