Assessment of Existing Solid Waste Management Practices Within the Urban Council Limit of Vavuniya

Abstract

Solid Waste Management has become an acute problem mainly due to rapid urbanization within the UC limit of Vavuniya. Urban Council (UC) is responsible for the solid waste management (SWM) within the UC limits which is divided in to 11 ward places and consists of 20,047 families. The UC collected approximately 87.5 tons of solid waste and spent nearly Rs. 2,098,937 per month for the whole SWM services. Even though, the UC spent this much of money every month, people were not satisfied with the service rendered by the UC. The objective of the study is to assess the existing SWM practices prevailing among the residents within the UC limits of Vavuniya. The samples of 130 households were randomly selected from thetwo purposively selected ward places namely Thonikal and Pandarikulam to get the data using structured questionnaire. The study reveals that about 60% of the households hand over the solid waste to the UC vehicle without any separation whereas the rest of the households disposed their waste through different options like backyard burning, composting and midnight dumping. 80% of the households reported that they had problems with thetime of collection and they were not satisfied with the existing SWM services rendered by the UC. Changing the time of collection during early morning and evening and increasing the frequency of collection may avoid the improper SWM practices at household level.