Domestic solid waste management practices and their determinant factors in Bule Hora town, southern Oromia, Ethiopia

Poor solid waste management occurs when household owners fail to properly segregate, store, and dispose of waste at unauthorized dumping sites or in open fields throughout the town. This negligence leads to environmental pollution, water contamination, and adverse health effects in developing urban areas. The 3Rs (reduce, reuse, and recycle) are fundamental principle in solid waste management. They aim to minimize waste by decreasing resource consumption (reduce), encouraging the repeated use of items (reuse), and transforming waste into new products or energy (recycle). Therefore, this study aims to evaluate domestic solid waste management practices and their determining factors in Bule Hora town.

A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in 361 households of Bule Hora Town. Study participants were selected using a systematic random sampling technique. Data was collected by using a pre-tested questionnaire and an observational checklist. The collected data was entered into EpiData version 4.6.1 and subsequently exported to SPSS version 26 for statistical analysis. Logistic regression analysis with a 95% confidence interval (CI) was employed to identify factors associated with domestic solid waste management practices. Variables with a p-value of less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

The domestic solid waste management practices in Bule Hora town were found to be inadequate, with a rating of only 66.7%. This deficiency can be attributed primarily to poor institutional conditions (77.3%), insufficient funding support for solid waste management initiatives from the municipality (84.4%), and inadequate collection services (74.5%). Approximately two-thirds of respondents (67.6%) indicated that the city does not implement safe and reliable solid waste management practices to meet the needs of residents. The study participants revealed that larger families are more likely to engage in poor solid waste management practices compared to smaller families (Adjusted Odds Ratio [AOR] = 4.35; 95% Confidence Interval [CI] 2.73-6.97; p = 0.001). Additionally, households with low average incomes were found to be 6.63 times more likely to practice poor solid waste management than those with higher incomes (AOR = 6.63; 95% CI 4.01-10.98; p = 0.002).

This study showed that, the domestic solid waste management system in Bule Hora town is inadequate. We recommend that the town implement community awareness programs and enhance municipal solid waste collection services. Additionally, homeowners should focus on reducing waste volume through reuse, recycling, and energy recovery initiatives.