ASSESSSMENT OF SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT SERVICE IN YIRGALEM TOWN, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

ABSTRACT Yirgalem is one of the town by which proper provision of Solid waste management practice is still unsatisfactory and in complete. In Yirgalem, illegal dumping of waste on open areas, street, ditches and river courses is considered as routine task of residents. This Research is aimed at the overall assessment of the existing Solid Waste Management (SWM) service in Yirgalem town. Besides, this have also specific objectives such as investigation of households’ solid waste generation rate, physical composition and management practices, the existing status and spatial coverage of SWM, and current institutional arrangement and capacity of SWM service delivery of the town. In order to accomplish these objectives, the researcher used both primary and secondary sources. The primary data were gathered through questionnaires, interviews, and field Measurement, and observations. Whereas secondary data were extracted from different published and unpublished materials. The analysis of this research proposal will carried out using both qualitative and quantitative techniques. The findings of this study revealed that the present system of SWM in Yirgalem town entirely relied on the municipality which provided the full range of waste collection, transportation and disposal service. But, the provision of this service is not kept in pace with the town solid waste generation. Based on the findings of this research, the town households’ dominantly produced biodegradable solid wastes (58.8 %) with generation rate of 0.249kg/person/day. This made the daily total solid waste generation of households to 50.85m3(18814.5). Together with other four solid waste sources the total daily solid waste generation is about 66.8m3 m3(24716kg kg)but only 16m3(23.94%) of this is collected and disposed of the town disposal site of the town. So that MSWM of the town is found in very low status spatial coverage. This poor status of MSWM is also intensified by three critical factors. The first one is poor institutional structure and capacity of SBPDD. The second short coming is limited participation and contribution of stakeholders’ i.e. unsatisfactory participation of communities no collaboration of various CBOs NGOs, no private sector involvement, very limited contribution of MSSE, solid waste miners and hand crafts of Yirgalem town. The third constraint is poor house holds’ solid waste management practices resulted from improper handling of solid waste storage materials, low level of solid waste separation and resource recovery activities and illegal solid waste disposal. Therefore, the best ways that used to tackle the above problems are: execution of sustainable solid waste management systems (reuse, recycle, composting and incineration) through awareness creation and training of SBPDD institutional structure and capacity, and implementation of integrated MSWM approach which recognizes and comprises all stakeholders.