Municipal Solid Waste Management Course
Municipal Solid Waste Management Course
Municipal Solid Waste Management Course
*Corresponding author
ABSTRACT
Municipal solid waste management becomes a problem when governmental
authorities are little involved in solving the pollution that the generation of
solid wastes causes. This situation turns more complex in marginalized
communities. However, environmental education and training are two
available tools to an efficient manage municipal solid waste. The aim of this
research was to train the community to develop skills and abilities and to
change attitudes for the efficient management of municipal solid waste in
Xaltianguis. Interviews to key actors were conducted; workshops designed on
efficient municipal solid waste management were piloted and implemented;
and the intended learning outcomes of the first and the last workshop were
assessed. Twenty-five participants integrated the object population. The
implementation of this course was evaluated in a participative way. The final
outcomes showed better knowledge, skills and attitudes related to municipal
solid waste management; more participation in community activities and
higher concerning among women in this issue. Besides, four community
committees were created to work on future activities to solve the community’s
issues related to municipal solid waste generation and management.
Keywords: Municipal solid waste, waste management, waste disposal,
community, course, environmental education.
788 Viridiana Del Carmen-Niño et al
INTRODUCTION
The generation and the pollution of municipal solid waste (MSW) is a problem that
becomes more complex when the schemes of the Municipal Department of Sanitation
Services (MDSS) lack of training and information to carry out the proper management
of waste [1, 2, 3, 4]. This situation happens in urban cities as well as in far-from-
urbanization locations [5, 6, 7] although in these last ones, the problem may be bigger
for their technical and financial resources for efficient management are limited. That
pollution and damage of natural resources were not the only problem, but also the
impact on the population’s health [8]. The situation gets worse due to the
community’s scarce participation and organization in municipal solid waste
management (MSWM), as it has been pointed out by some authors [9, 10, 11].
In a study in 2017, it was reported that 23 open dumps (OD) have been found in the
community of Xaltianguis, Guerrero [12]. This situation evidences the inefficient
MSWM that prevails in the community, mainly due to the lack of municipal
collection services and the insufficient population’s management capacity, causing
environmental, social and economic consequences [13].
Diverse authors state that the responsibility is not only of the governmental authorities
but of the different actors involved as well; thus, collective not isolated efforts and
resources are needed, giving priority to the emerging of training and environmental
education [14, 15]; and also, the implementation of recycling [16, 17, 18] and making
composting with organic waste [19] to reduce space pollution and its consequences.
Some authors [20, 21, 22] suggest that marginalized communities can undertake
favorable actions such as implementing workshops to improve their MSWM and to
train the population, in order for the community to get organized to achieve an
efficient MSWM. This is why the aim of this course was to train the community to
develop skills and abilities and change attitudes towards MSWM, by implementing a
Community Participation on Municipal Solid Waste Management Course
(CPMSWMC).
(INEGI for its name in Spanish) is an autonomous agency of the Mexican Government dedicated to
coordinate the National System of Statistical and Geographical Information of the country.
Municipal Solid Waste Management Course: A Case Study in Xaltianguis, Guerrero, 789
Methodology
-Before the application of the CPMSWMC, interviews, on how the community
managed MSW, were conducted to key actors, such as the municipal commissioner
and the ejidal commissioner2, governmental authorities, representative members of
the informal sector of waste collection and to the population, to get reliable
information.
-The methodology of the CPMSWMC was designed (Figure 2) in order for the
community to learn how to organize and develop a participatory program on MSWM.
2
In the Mexican system of government, an ejido is an area of communal land used for agriculture, on
which community members individually farm designated parcels and collectively maintain communal
holdings.
790 Viridiana Del Carmen-Niño et al
-Didactic sequences were designed; one sequence for each one of the four course’s
five-hour sessions (Figure 2) [25, 26, 27]; that were implemented from May 20 to
June 2, 2018, from 3:00 PM to 8:00 PM, which was the timetable set in a participative
manner, to cover the twenty hours of in-class work. Among the twenty-five attendants
were housewives, students, teachers, peasants, medical doctors, merchants, informal-
sector-waste collectors, school-administrative personnel, people in general and, some
members of the 2015-2018 City Town Hall in office who only attended the first
session.
-Written questionnaires for the diagnostic and the final assessments were administered
prior and after the course was implemented. Each one had 20 items that included:
general data, knowledge, attitudes and skills on MSWM, with topics on integrating
and building MSW concepts, awareness and formulating alternatives to solving
Xaltianguis’ MSWM [28, 29].
-Regarding the assessment of the CPMSWMC, four aspects were considered: the
cntents’ ease, activities’ appropriateness, course’s organization and broadly
participation [30]. It was administered in a participative way, in the end of the course.
Later, to process and analyze the data, simple frequencies were calculated to measure
the studied variables by using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS),
version 18.
Municipal Solid Waste Management Course: A Case Study in Xaltianguis, Guerrero, 791
noxious fauna, air pollution from burning as it was noted by Palermo et al., [32] who
also include among these, the lack of the population’s involvement in the analyzing of
the problems related to MSWM.
At the beginning of the course, most of the participants (84 percentage) identified
garbage as a polluter. They also mentioned the damage garbage causes to health,
mainly because of the proliferation of infectious disease vectors, the inhalation of
greenhouse gases emitted by the intentional burning of waste and odors. In the end of
the course, all the participants agreed that the main problem is waste (Figure 3),
besides they also reflected that this problem and pollution get worse due to the fact
that the population lacks of knowledge on the issue. About this scenario, in a study of
perception, Borroto et al., [28] showed that 70.7 percentage and 79.4 percentage of
the population of two Cuban communities described the environmental problems of
their environment, as it happened in this study, which indicates that the population has
the capacity to identify environmental problems. And respect to the MSW, Palanca-
Tan [33] showed that the citizens of Manila, Philippines, were deeply concerned with
solid waste, as 92 percentage of respondents of his survey identified MSW as one of
the main environmental problems, in town.
P Major environmental problem in the neighborhood
e
r 120%
c
e 100%
n 80%
t Waste
a 60%
g 100% Odors
40% 84%
e Backyard animals
s 20%
12% 4% 0% 0%
0%
Diagnostic Final
Assesments
In the diagnostic assessment, when asked who the main responsible of the MSWM
was, 32 percentage of the participants answered that municipal and local authorities
were the ones; also 32 percentage said that they were all responsible; while in the
summative evaluation, the highest percentage was for the ‘It is everybody’s
responsibility’ answer that was given by 64% of the participants (Figure 4). These
outcomes coincided with the study conducted by Abarca et al.,[14] which indicated
that, without environmental education or training on MSWM, the population holds the
municipality responsible, therefore, society needs to be included in the decision-
making process in a participatory manner, in order to achieve an appropriate operation
of the MSWM.
Municipal Solid Waste Management Course: A Case Study in Xaltianguis, Guerrero, 793
About waste management, they achieved knowledge and skills to be able to separate
waste (Figure 6) and how temporary storage, composting and collection centers for
recyclable materials are related in this process. Some of them said they separated food
waste to feed their backyard animals and to make compost. Some authors, like
Armitaño et al., [19] and Aleluia and Ferrão[7], maintain that it is feasible to develop
these activities in rural communities with similar conditions as those of Xaltianguis.
Most of the participants recognized that women, while being in charge of the
household management, are the main actors who separate waste but all family
members should participate in separating waste, as well as the community and the
governmental authorities, considering the inefficiency of these last in the process of
waste management. They also identified recycling inorganic waste as an employment
source for scavengers and agreed that an efficient management contributes to
conserve natural resources, as some authors have suggested in the their studies [17, 6,
18].
3
Prospera is a government social assistance program in Mexico founded in 2002, based on a previous
program called Progresa, created in 1997.
Municipal Solid Waste Management Course: A Case Study in Xaltianguis, Guerrero, 795
derives from the lack of this kind of courses, resources and materials that should be
implemented to motivate the participation of the population. Concerning this,
Kanchanabhandhu and Woraphong [10] point out the need to implement training and
Environmental Education, as it is an important tool to provide knowledge in order to
promote awareness and behavior changes, in search of collective participation
towards waste managenmt. This is the reason why in this study, the participation of
the target population was analyzed by comparing the outcomes of the diagnostic and
final assessments, and it showed the participant’s interest in participating in the waste
management process had increased significantly, by the end of the course (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Participation
Among the proposals to keep the streets clean, they mentioned: campaigns supported
by schools, to call meetings to organize neighbors and subscribe agreements among
them, integrate committees, encourage everyone to participate or punish those who do
not. Moreover, they empathized that those who did not sweep the front area of their
house should pay a fine, as it is stated in the Bando de Policía y Buen Gobierno
(Enforcement and Good Governance Law) of the Municipality of Acapulco.
On the fourth and last session, the participants decided and prioritized [34] four
problems related to an inefficient MSWM of the community: deficient collection
service, inadequate separation, intentional open burning of waste and OPDs. They
also established four committees in order to structure the following projects:
Improvement of the collection service, Separation and use of organic waste at home to
make compost, Reduction of intentional open burning of waste, Collection of
inorganic recyclable waste, Reduction of ODs, Preparation and validation of MSWM
regulations in Xaltianguis. Each committee signed an agreement on how it might be
organized, formed by a president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer and members.
796 Viridiana Del Carmen-Niño et al
P Course assessment
e 90% 84%
r 80% Excellent
72%
c 70%
60% Good
e
60% Fair
n
t 50% 44%
36% Poor
a 40% 32%
24% Very poor
g 30% 20%
e 20% 12%
s 8%
10% 4% 0% 4%
0% 0% 0%
0%
Clarity of Activities Organization Participation
content
Criteria
CONCLUSIONS
This research shows that MSWM is a complex topic, with multiple operative,
environmental, social, cultural, legal, institutional and economic aspects that should
be taken into consideration to make the system work. The work done confirmed that if
the population is involved in the diagnose, training process and environmental
education for MSWM, not only the waste management problems of the town would
be identified, but also their possible causes and solutions. This way, the population
would be able to contribute with valuable ideas that the municipal or local authorities
and community organizations could use to design actions focused on MSWM.
It is important to emphasize that the financial support of the government and the
municipal leaders’ interest are essential for MSWM, but the participation of the users
Municipal Solid Waste Management Course: A Case Study in Xaltianguis, Guerrero, 797
and the proper administration of the funds are equally essential in this matter, and the
latter can only be achieved with training work and environmental education that can
be implemented amongst different types of population, but even better in those with
unfavorable conditions particularly when it comes to accessing to public services
The collected information about the interrelated factors and the way to reach this
information is useful for the topic of MSWM that is to be developed by the
counterparts for the planning of MSWM programs for marginalized localities and
municipalities. In addition to this, waste management planning requires from the
municipal authorities, formal and informal workers and from the general population
for the development of projects. Training and abilities development are needed at all
levels. The community must understand the importance of waste management, the
effects of inefficient management on the environment and public health, and the role
and responsibilities of each individual in managing waste. There might be responsible
citizens who would consider waste as a source of opportunities and income.
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