Assessment of Households' Willingness to Join and Pay for Improving Waste Management Practices in Gedeo Zone, Southern Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Waste management has become a serious challenge in urban areas of developing countries. However, managing municipal solid waste generated is the most costly urban service and needs community engagement in management of municipal solid wastes. Therefore, this study determined willingness to join and pay for improving solid waste management services and associated factors among households of Gedeo zone, Southern Ethiopia. METHOD: We performed a community-based cross-sectional study design to assess willingness to join and pay for improved solid waste management and its predictors among residents in Gedeo zone, Southern Ethiopia. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was computed to identify the factors associated with willingness to join and pay for improved solid waste management services. An adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to report an association, and a p < 0.05 was used to declare a statistically significant association. RESULT: Of 552 study participants, 91.5% (95% CI: 89.2, 93.8) were willing to join and 86.3% (95% CI: 83.3, 89.4) of them were willing to pay for improving solid waste management services. Having a large family size, higher educational status, positive attitude, and good knowledge of waste management services, access to waste management services, and amount of waste generated per week were positively associated with willingness to support improved solid waste management services. In addition, we found that respondents with high educational status, monthly income, who had good knowledge of waste management, access to waste management services, and the amount of waste generated per week were significant predictors of willingness to pay for improved solid waste management. CONCLUSION: This study found that a significant number of the respondents were willing to support and pay for improved solid waste management services. A higher probability of willingness to support and pay for solid waste management services among residents who had access to waste management services and good knowledge of solid waste management was observed. Therefore, wide-range awareness creation through mini media should be used to address poor knowledge. In addition, establishing more temporary waste collection sites in every corner of cities is needed to encourage households to support and pay for improved solid waste management services.