Residents' Perception Of The Health Impacts Of Indiscriminate Solid Waste Disposal In Ifite Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria

Abstract

Indiscriminate solid waste disposal has emerged as a critical environmental and public health issue in many urban areas worldwide. This work studied the residents’ perception of the health impacts of indiscriminate solid waste disposal in Ifite Awka, Awka South LGA, Anambra State, Nigeria. A total of 398 respondents were randomly sampled using a simple random sampling. The result showed that 24.37% respondents strongly agreed on the lack of proper waste management infrastructure as affecting waste disposal methods, 23.90% strongly agreed that indiscriminate waste disposal helps to spread diseases. The Spearman’s rank coefficient (Rs), which is 0.76, shows that there is a strong positive correlation between indiscriminate waste disposal and health impacts. The calculated value 4.35 is greater than the critical value 1.86 at a 0.05 significance level; the null hypothesis was rejected. It was recommended, among other things, for an increase in the enlightenment campaign through jingles in mass media on proper waste disposal methods.

Keywords: Solid Waste, Health impacts, waste management, residents, perception