Solid Waste Management In Ethiopia

Waste is produced by all sectors of the economy. Every person is a potential producer of waste. It is as old as the existence of human beings. In early times, in order to minimize the health impacts of wastes, transporting the waste out of residential places been the primary concern of authorities. After the end of Second World War a high rate of population and urbanization has brought an increased demand of urban and waste disposal land. In developed countries, different mechanisms of waste management have been discovered and applied. However, the condition is different in developing countries (Lindell, 2012).

In many developing countries solid waste management has become a serious challenge. In low income communities wastes are dumped

In this connection, less than 50 percent of the population is served and 30-60 percent of all the urban solid wastes remain uncollected. The budget for collection of wastes varies from countries to countries. While collection of solid waste consumes up 80-90 percent of Municipal management budget in low-income countries, in mid-income countries, however, the collection cost decreases to 50-80 percent of total budget. The cost of collection further decreases to less than 10 percent in high-income countries (see UNEP, 2009).

Like the others developing countries, solid waste management is a serious confront to Ethiopia. This is mainly due to rapid urbanization and population growth. Many towns in the country lack the financial resources and institutional capacity to provide the needed municipal infrastructure for adequate solid waste management (Dagnew et al, 2012). The solid waste management in Ethiopian cities has not been carried out in a sufficient, suitable and appropriate manner. As a result, the quality of environment in cities has become more serious from time to time, and people are suffering from living in such

Urbanization and high population growth are responsible for many environmental problems of which the one is solid waste. Around the streets, market, commercial and residential areas, solid wastes easily appear. Despite the progress by Jimma Town to address the challenges of solid waste management, still there are unresolved problems like low coverage of Solid Waste Management (SWM) service, absence of well designed transfer site, and problem of demarcating the final site of disposal. In the year 2014/15, the total solid waste generated by different sectors is 144,000m3, of which more than 50% is from households. However, in the same year, the total solid waste collected far below the waste generated; it is 81,152m3 (Jimma City Administration,