Environmental Awareness in Motor Vehicle Garages in the City of Mbeya, Tanzania

The study focused at examining the extent of environmental awareness in Motor Vehicles Garages in Mbeya City. The study used structured questionnaires, interviews and observation to collect data. A total of 41 Garages and 12 Car wash sites were surveyed. Study revealed that a total of 51, 300 litres of water were used for cleaning 1026 cars per week, with high risk of health problems, due to contamination. The study also revealed that efforts by government has been at place, these effort includes training the garage owners, sales of some waste products to some companies for recycling purposes. The study identified challenges facing the garages this included many garage sites were built in residential areas, poor record keeping of waste products etc and this was partly contributed by their poor academic backgrounds, which did not cover environmental issues in detail. As a result many garages had poor management of waste generated in their working places. This study recommended that more efforts should done by Mbeya City authorities to provide environmental awareness to Garages employees and communities around.