Sustainable resource recovery through waste collection systems: Households perspective

Sustainable value chains are a drive towards minimising non-renewable resource consumption. Globally, the goal is to achieve sustainability in resource consumption from the point of production to the end-of-life (EoL) of the product. To achieve sustainability in the recovery chains of wastes, a number of aspects contribute. Waste collection systems are important aspects to value chains in waste recovery systems. This research aimed to assess the types of waste collection systems that influence sustainable plastic solid wastes (PSWs) recovery from households in a developing country of Zambia, Africa. The specific objectives of the research were to; identify the types of waste service providers; determine the different kinds of waste collection systems used and preferred by the households; and make a comparative analysis. A non-experimental survey was conducted in Ndola city. 345 structured questionnaires were distributed to households in the different locations of Ndola city. Stratified sampling was used to determine the number of questionnaires for distribution in each location. Further, simple random sampling was used to distribute the questionnaires to the households. 299 questionnaires were analysed using Software Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The results revealed that, waste is collected for disposal and recovery purposes. The private waste companies, municipality, informal waste collectors (IWCs) and plastic waste manufacturing and recycling companies collect PSWs. However, unsustainable ways of disposing wastes are performed by households such as burning and burying. The majority of wastes is collected by the private waste collectors 34%. A number of waste collection systems are used and majority of the households use Kerbside waste collection systems 68%. Nevertheless, Buy-Back Centres, Deposit Refund Systems, Drop-off Systems and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) are other waste collection systems used. For waste collection systems preferred by the households, majority prefer Kerbside waste collection systems (89.7%. However, 83.7% prefer Buy-Back Centres Design of sustainable value chains for waste recovery is an important aspect of achieving sustainable resource utilization. Therefore, understanding the importance of waste collection systems in the value chain is an important innovation component. For waste collection providers and recoveries, the study contributes by highlighting the types of waste collection systems preferred by households. These systems are cardinal for implementation when designing waste recovery systems. Further, integration of households in the value chains of waste recovery systems is cardinal for achieving success. To policy makers the results provide insights for consideration when developing waste recovery and management policies.