MANAGEMENT AND AWARENESS ON HEALTH HAZARDS OF HOUSEHOLD WASTE: A COMMUNITY BASED STUDY

Naresh Manandhar1*, Syed Ataullah2, Rishav Raj2, Pallabi Chakraborty2, Supriya Raya Adhikari2, Deeksha Sharma2 Received : 12 October, 2020 Accepted : 22 August, 2021 Published : 04 November, 2021 1440 ISSN: 2542-2758 (Print) 2542-2804 (Online) Birat Journal of Health Sciences Vol.6/No.2/Issue 15/May-Aug., 2021 Original Research Ar cle Manandhar N et al


INTRODUCTION
Waste is physical things or unwanted materials that are of no 1 use to the human beings. Waste management is the ac vi es and ac ons required to manage waste from its incep on to its final disposal. The process of waste managements are the collec on, transport, treatment and 2 disposal of waste, together with monitoring and regula on. Waste can be solid, liquid, or gaseous and each type has different methods of disposal and management. Waste management includes all types of waste like industrial, biological and household waste. Waste management is aimed to reduce adverse effects of waste on human health, 3 the environment or aesthe cs. Waste management usually done by the techniques of Landfills, Incinera on, Recycling, Biological Reprocessing, Waste Collec on and Energy Recovery. The first principle of waste management is waste hierarchy, which follows the "Three R rule" for waste preven on and minimiza on being the most desirable goal. The three R stands for Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The second principle is the extended producer responsibility, adding all the environmental costs to the market price of a product, which includes end-of-life disposal. In addi on the third principle is the polluter or a waste generator pays for the appropriate disposal of the 4 waste. Each type of waste management corresponds to a management process. Pre-sor ng is required for properly management of the waste. The sor ng includes the separa on of recyclable waste from non-recyclable waste, and then energy recovery. Hence, there is a huge economic poten al that needs to be leveraged by public and private 4 sector. Solid waste management is one of the major environmental issues in urban areas of many developing countries, including Nepal. Urban popula on growth and economic development lead to increasing genera on of municipal solid waste. The Government of Nepal enacted the Solid Waste Management Act of 2011 to maintain a clean and healthy environment by minimizing the adverse effects of METHODOLOGY Descrip ve cross-sec onal study was conducted from t h t h 10 November to 15 November 2019 at Khopasi, Kavrepalanchowk. The sample size (n) was calculated usingthe prevalence of household waste management and awareness propor on 50%. 2 2 n=Z pq/e Where, Z = 1.96 is the score at 95% confidence interval p is the es mated prevalence, which we have taken as 50% q =100%-p=50% e is the es mated error (6%). 2 2 n= (1.96) *(0.5*0.5)/(0.06) =267 Assuming that there will be 5% non-response rate therefore the final sample size was 281. The convenience sampling technique was used to select 281 households and interview was conducted to the household head. A pretested ques onnaire was used for the data collec on by face-toface interviews. Ethical approval was taken from Ins tu onal Review Commi ee of Kathmandu Medical College and wri en consent was taken from the respondents a er explaining the purpose of study. The iden ty of the respondents and their responses were kept confiden al and the data was used for the research purpose only. The sta s cal package for social sciences (SPSS) version 20 was used for data entry and analysis. Descrip ve sta s cs like frequency, mean, percentage etc was calculated.

RESULTS
The mean age of all 281 respondents was 44.89 years with the standard devia on of 14.89 years. The mean age for male was 46.29 years, and the figure was 43.61 years for female with the standard devia on of 14.79 years and 14.35 years for male and female respec vely.    (Table 3) Among the 281 respondents, only 43% were sa sfied with their waste collec ng service and the rest 57% thought the waste collec ng service could be much more efficient.

DISCUSSION
A study conducted in municipali es of Nepal revealed that 1 an average household generates 170 grams/capita/day . Households in Terai municipali es generate nearly 80% more waste than those in mountain region municipali es. The analysis of household waste composi on indicated that the highest waste category was organic waste with 66%, followed by plas cs with 12%, and paper and paper products 3 with 9%. Unhealthy disposal of solid waste is considered as one of the most important problems in many socie es. The problem of waste management has arisen recently in developing countries where there is li le history of the implementa on of formal and informal community 5 environmental educa on awareness program. Management of solid waste is a growing concern in Nepal as urban popula on densi es increase and flat usable land is in short supply. Although small urban centers were declared municipali es, they suffer from a lack of infrastructural, technical and financial resources to tackle the problems of 3 waste management. This study will assess the management and disposal of the household wastes of Khopasi village. The mean age of 281 respondents was 44.89 years and maximum of respondents belonged to age group 30-34 years. In present research 44.5% of respondents considered waste management is a major issue in their locality which is 6 consistent with the findings of Azuike where it was 50.7%. The knowledge of waste management is poor (9.9%) in the present study respondents which very low with compared to 5 the findings of Arora where it was 46%. In the mode of household waste disposal, the present study revealed that 26.3% of respondents were disposed by burning. Similar finding was found in the study conducted in Lahore, Pakistan 7 8 (24%) and Mangalore, India (30%). The prac ce of burning of waste is common because this is a rural area in a developing country where modern household waste management systems are not available. Around 26% of respondents used to throw waste in the riverbank or indiscriminately in open places in present study 6 7 which is less than the finding of Azuike and Shahzadi where it was 48.5% and 42% respec vely. This difference may due to different me improving in awareness and educa on status. Majority of the respondents (84.3%) were aware about adverse effect on their health due to improper waste 7 disposal, which is consistent with the finding of Shahzadi where it was 72%. The present study found that around 40% of the respondents collected their waste in dustbin. This is 7 consistent with the finding of Shahzadi where it was 41%. Only about 42.3% were sa sfied with the current waste management. Many who were not sa sfied thought that the frequency of waste collec on done by the municipality could be increased. People also required a proper drainage system for their disposal of the waste water. They also though public bins at frequent interval present throughout the locality could be efficient in managing waste in the community. The present research revealed that only 55.2% prac ced presor ng of waste before disposal where as it 9 was 17.3% in the study conducted by Yoada. This difference may due to different study sites and me period. The presor ng of household waste yields the separa on of recyclable waste from non-recyclable waste, and subsequently the energy recovery. Therefore, presor ng has a tremendous economic poten al that needs to be prac ce and take advantages by public and private sectors. Pres o r n g creates j o bs , wh ich imp roved waste management leads to a be er quality of life for local popula ons, by improving hygiene condi ons and reducing health risks related to illegal dumping and inadequate garbage collec on. The main advantage of the sustainable waste management is to lessen the impact on the environment, by improving air and water quality and contribu ng to the reduc on of greenhouse gas emissions.

CONCLUSION
The present study indicates that majority of respondents were aware about the adverse effect on their health due to improper waste disposal. However the knowledge of waste management is poor. They throw waste in the riverbank or indiscriminately in the open places. They were not sa sfied with the current waste management program. Hence, the municipali es should try to reach every sector of the community to collect the waste or at least provide public bins at frequent interval throughout the locality. There should be the arrangement of health educa on programs in the community for educa ng people about the proper disposal methods. Programs should be focused on preven ve measures that can be taken to prevent diseases due to accumula on of house hold waste.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY
The study could not cover a large area, was conducted in 6 days and thus comprehensive data collec on was not possible due to me constraint. The par cipants less than 18 years were not included in the study. The many par cipants were not willing to give informa on regarding their view on the waste management and the method of waste disposal.