Toxicología ambiental y analítica

Assessment of Challenges and Opportunities of Composting Organic SolidWastes: The Case of Robe Town, Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

Aliyi Mama Gasu, Uma Devi Pongiya and Fatuma Hamid Mohammed

Composting is used in the management as a method to recover organic wastes. It provides the environmental and health benefits by reducing the survival and spread of pathogens. The growth of urban population and economic activities has resulted in corresponding growth of solid waste in Robe town. However, the traditional approach to organic solid waste management in the town focuses on the end of line solutions that are capital intensive, and therefore costly. The main purpose of the current study was to assess the challenges and opportunities of composting organic solid wastes. The research used descriptive method with survey strategy. To draw the sample, both probability and nonprobability sampling method were used and the total sample sizes of 384 from the three selected kebeles were selected proportionally to their respective household numbers. Both qualitative and quantitative tools such as questionnaires, interview, field observation and photography were used to collect the required data. The data quality was measured in terms of validity, reliability and practicability. The data were analyzed using, SPSS and Microsoft Excel. The finding of the study revealed that, there is no proper composting of organic solid wastes in the town. The challenges that hold back the implementation of composting organic solid waste includes lack of awareness, lack of adequate space for composting, lack of support from government, policy frame work, institutional problem (lack of department of urban agriculture) and budget constraint. However, the opportunities are availability of huge amount of organic wastes, farmers engaged in urban agriculture, suitable environment for composting, huge demand for organic fertilizer and an increase in price of chemical fertilizer.