Management of Garbage in Markets Run by Lusaka City Council

The study investigated services provided by Lusaka City Council to markets. Focus was on the following markets which are managed by Lusaka City Council; Old Soweto, Chelston and Kaunda Square stage 1. The overall objective of this study was; to determine the factors accounting for poor provision of services by Lusaka City Council to Markets. The specific objectives were: To establish the extent of poor garbage collection at markets run by Lusaka City Council; To examine the extent to which marketeers are satisfied with the way garbage is collected from markets; and To determine the constraints in the way of improving poor garbage collection frommarkets run by the Lusaka City Council. The total sample size for this study was 264. The key informants were 18 and their composition was as follows: 6 senior appointed officials from Lusaka City Council, 3 Councilors who were also from Lusaka City Council and 9 Market Advisory Committee representatives from the selected markets.30 support staffs were purposively selected from Lusaka City Council. Simple random sampling was used to select 216marketeers. Both primary and secondary data was used for this research. Qualitative and quantitative data was also used in this study. Qualitative data was analysed by transcribing it into the major themes which emerged. Quantitative data was analysed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS). The study found out that Lusaka City Council (LCC) lacked capacity to manage market garbage. Though some marketeers interviewed in this study were satisfied with the way the Council managed garbage from inside the market, the study has established that the Council had difficulties collecting garbage from the secondary points of the markets, points which are directly managed by the Waste Management Unit of the Council. The study found out that the Council does not have enough garbage collection tools such as wheelie bins, machinery such as hook trucks, skip trucks, tipper trucks and compactors which are needed for effective garbage collection from markets. This study has also revealed that regardless of the existence of garbage management system at Lusaka City Council, the Council has no schedule as to when garbage is supposed to be collected in a particular market and this has contributed to the delay in the collection of garbage from the secondary collection point. This researcher recommends that machinery for garbage collection such as trucks, compactors and bins should be bought if garbage collection in markets is to improve.