Segregation of Solid Waste at Household Level in Addis Ababa City

Source separation in addition to central sorting techniques has been the bedrock of successful materials recovery and recycling programmes in developed countries. The process goes along with an initial increase in the cost of solid waste storage, collection and subsequent transportation. The present status, the existing challenges and the opportunities of solid waste segregation at household level in Addis Ababa city was initial point of views of the study. The research design (mixed methods) that is qualitative and quantitative designs this is because of the need to obtain a variety of information on the same issue, to use the strength of each method to overcome the deficiencies that could come from using one design and to achieve a higher degree of validity and reliability Data were collected from two main sources, primary and secondary. The sample size estimation is calculated here is how the math works assuming a 95% confidence level, .5 standard deviation and a margin of error of +/-5% Therefore, S= (1.96)2* 0.5(1-0.5)/ (0.05)2= 384. Data analysis and processing were on-going and statistical analysis were done SPSS version 16, frequencies of the emerging issues are then established and this were presented in a tabular or graphic form like pie-chats, bar graph and frequencies and percentages were generated. That means segregation at house hold level don't depend on demographic characteristics of the house hold Rather it have significant relation with awareness, willingness, space and material availability. Most of sample respondents (71.1%) have no awareness about segregation of solid waste, 28.9% are aware about solid waste segregation almost this amount of respondents are willing to segregate, whereas solid waste segregation is now being 4.9%, which is very minimal, this is mainly as a result of lack of awareness, The other obstacle for the success of solid waste segregation are lack of space, lack of material and others (all of them). This result shows that lack of awareness is the major problem of segregation to the sampled households in the contrary the result showed that their opportunities to segregation like that of willingness of respondents to segregate, ability of material to recycle, presence of SME, presence of recycling factories, presence of organizational structure. Awareness creation to SME, public organizers (hizb aderegaget), religious organizations, educational organizations, stakeholders and waste pickers (quralews) and practice in householdsto improve solid waste segregation at the sources.