Solid Waste Management in Local Governments in Sri Lanka with reference to the Boralesgamuwa Urban Council

Abstract

Local authorities are responsible for the provision of an extensive range of public services for the citizens in that residential area which encompassing different fields including the social, economic, environmental, recreational, and community development. This study has been narrowed down to examine the difficulties facing by local government when providing Environmental and sanitation services. When it refers to the environmental services provided by local governments, Solid-waste management can be regarded as a burning problem especially in Colombo district. Based on this situation, this research has been conducted to study about the Solid-waste management in local governments in Sri Lanka with special reference to Boralesgamuwa Urban Council. Main purpose of this study is to identify the challenges of local government institutions in solid waste management and to provide recommendations to enhance the solid waste management practices in local government institutions in Sri Lanka. This study is mainly based on the primary data which has been collected through in-depth interviews followed a semi structured questionnaire. Sample size is 50 including ten officers, ten waste collecting servants and twenty citizens in Boralesgamuwa area. Data has been collected using random sampling methods and analyzed descriptively. As the main findings of the study it was recognized the problem of proper implementation of the waste collecting plan of Boralesagmuwa urban council. There were several servant related problems such as servants’ demotivation, deficiency of labors, lack of facilities, lack of attendance, health problems and bad behaviors of labors etc. Deficiency of vehicles and maintenance problems identified under the category of transport relater problems. The matter of not collecting the waste properly by waste collecting servants was the main problem identified related to the people. Further, recommendations for solid waste management problems in local authorities, have also been provided in this study.

Keywords: local government, solid waste, management