Households' source separation behaviour and solid waste disposal options in Ghana's Millennium City

Abstract

Poor solid waste management has increasingly taken a hegemonic position in urban policy discourse in Ghana. Often, the discourse centers on free market principles and inflexible waste management laws that promote privatization and deregulation. Recently however, source separation is dominating discussions on policy alternatives. This study investigates determinants of households' source separation behaviour and solid waste disposal options among residents of Ghana's 'Millennium City'- Accra using logit and multinomial logit regression models respectively. The logit regression estimates show that households' source separation behaviour is determined by gender, income, monetary incentives, attitude, compound house dummy, type of service provider and other household location variables. The multinomial logit estimates reveal that gender, age, age square, income, household size, employment, housing type, and attitude predicted household disposal options. We argue that to win the 'garbage war', source separation should be promoted by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly as this may enhance positive attitudes towards proper waste management.

Keywords: Ghana; Multinomial logistic regression; Solid waste disposal; Source separation.