Lovekosi A
Lovekosi A
Lovekosi A
As pointed out by Malik & Grohmann (2011, p. 500), The economic development of societies
evidently has a major effect on the environment since the natural resources are used and waste has
been produced from many activities. Especially, development activities may cause much
environmental pollution and have produced a lot of waste which is not good for a sound
environmental development. These wastes have become a threat to the environment. United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) defines wastes as objects or substances which the owner
does not want, need or use any longer and required treatment and/or disposal (McDougall et al,
2008, p.169). The tremendous amount of waste, proceeded by urban societies, has been
increasingly difficult to safety manage as cities troughout the world continue to grow (Anand, 2010,
p.1). Especially, the solid wastes have become a major consequence of development, modernization
and urbanization. Solid waste include useless, unwanted, discharged materials that is not liquid or
gas (Hosetti, 2006, 1). The solid waste affects the natural environment to a great extent and pose a
serious threat as these materials remain in one particular place or a relatively longer period of time
unless removed, burned or washed away (Anand, 2010, p.5). In this respect, solid waste has been
identified as significant matter for sustainable development. Besides, it has caused environmental,
social, economical, and political problems in many countries. Solid waste management has been in
focus in many countries in relation to their development processes to achieve sustainable
development.
However, some of the greatest challenges to waste management have been raised most keenly in
the developing countries (Thomas-Hope, 1998, p.1). While these countries step forward for
development, population growth and modern life style have challenged the environment in many
ways which question sustainability. Especially Sri Lanka can be identified as one of these countries
where the unbalanced urbanization and modernization have increased the pressure on natural
resources trough inefficient and wasteful utilization which lead to depletion and degradation of
Environment (Anand, 2010, p.3).
In Sri Lanka, the recent development activities have challenged the environment in various ways.
According to the National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP), management of solid waste has been
identified as one of the major challenge for sound environmental development in Sri Lanka. The
Ministry of Forestry and Environment introduced the National Strategy for Solid Waste Management
(NSSWM) to provide the overall guidance for the management of solid wastes. However, the
management of solid waste in Sri Lanka is rather chaotic and the required framework for developing
an appropriate waste management system has been in place for quite a while in the country
(Bandara, 2008, p.1).
According to the provisions of the Local Government Act, Solid waste management is the
responsibility of the Local Authorities (LAs) in Sri Lanka. Even though, the integrated solid waste
management has been strongly promoted by the Ministry of Environment, Central Environmental
Authority (CEA) and various governmental and non-governmental organizations in the country, many
municipalities were unable to safety manage solid wastes ensuring sound environmental
development. Therefore, this research considers solid waste management practices and its impact
on sustainable development in Sri Lanka by focusing on a selected study area.
References :
Bandara, N.J.G.J. (2008). Municipal Solid Waste Management – The Sri Lankan Case. Paper
Presented at Conference on Developments in Forestry and Environment Management in Sri Lanka.
Hosetti, B.B. (2006). Prospects and Perspective of Solid Waste Management, New Age International
publication.
Malik, A., & Grohmann, E., (2011). Environmental protection strategies for sustainable
development, Springer Publication.
McDougall, et al (2008). Integrated Solid Waste Management: A Life Cycle Inventory, John Wiley &
Sons.
Thomas-Hope, E.M. (1998). Solid waste management critical issues for developing countries. Canoe
press.
The main objective of this study is to explore the impacts of solid waste management on sustainable
development in the Hambantota urban council, Sri Lanka.
Specific objectives
To study the characteristics of solid waste management practices in Hambantota urban council.
To establish an understanding of the perception among local communities about solid waste
management for sound environmental development
To investigate the environmental impacts of solid waste management practices in Hambantota urban
council.
To assess how improved waste management practices can contribute to sustain the development
processes in Hambantota District.
Research Question
How do solid waste management practices have an impact on sustainable development in Hambantota
urban council?
1. What are the solid waste management practices in Hambantota urban council?
2. What are the perceptions of local communities about solid waste management for sound
environmental development?
3. How do the SWM practices affect the local environments in Hambantota urban council?
4. How do SWM practices affect the sustainable development in Hambantota district?
Methodology in brief
The research focuses on a case study design to assess solid waste management for sustainable development in
Hambantota Municipal council, Sri Lanka. Both qualitative and quantitative methods are used. The research
focuses on the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data for interpretation. The semi structured
interview, self completion questionnaire, focus group discussions and non participation observation
instruments are used to collect data. Mayor, commissioner, PHI, MOH, Development officer of HMC, workers
for waste collection in councils, site in charge of Hambantota Waste Management Center, local administrators,
community group leaders, UDA, CEA, HDCC Chairman, and Non Governmental Organizations (NGO)
representatives were interviewed while the researcher collected relevant information regarding waste disposal,
waste collecting system, and waste management system with non participant observations. Self completions
Questionnaires (SCQ) have been used to collect quantitative data followed by qualitative data. Government
reports, municipal council reports and many other documents from different organizations and academic
papers regarding waste management and its impact on the environment supported to collect secondary data.
Random sampling was used to select households and business population from selected areas. Purposive
sampling is used to select participants for the interviews and focus groups. Qualitative data are analyzed with
thematic analysis and by using NVivo; qualitative data analysis (QDA) computer software package while
Quantitative data were analyzed by Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).
Study Area
To understand the study, it is important that some background information on the study area is represented.
The research is conducted in Sri Lanka (See figure 1). Sri Lanka lies on the Indian Ocean plate between
latitudes 5 and 10 N, and longitude 79 and 82 E. The total land area of the country, including Inland Waters is
65,690 km2. The country is divided in 9 major provinces, 25 districts, 18 Municipal Councils, 42 Urban
Councils, 270 Pradeshiya Sabhas, 331 Divisional Secretary’s Division and 14,022 GN Divisions all over the
island (MPAHA, 2013) . The country has four major climatic zones; namely wet zone, dry zone, intermediate
zone and arid zone. Annual Temperature in the Low Country is minimum 24.3°C (75.7 ºF) & maximum
32.3°C (90.1 ºF) and in the Hill Country, minimum 18.0°C (64.4 ºF) & maximum 27.3°C (81.1 ºF). Annual
Rainfall average is 1,634 mm. The population of Sri Lanka is 20,277,597 (DCS Sri Lanka, 2012). Sri Lanka is
a multi cultural society. The official languages in the country are Sinhala and Tamil.
Sri Lanka is blessed with a rich biological diversity and has been identified as one of the top 34 biological
hotspots in the world (Ministry of Environment, 2011). Sri Lanka has one of the highest rates of
biological endemism which include 16% of the fauna and 23% of flowering plants (YBA, 1999). Its wildlife
includes 628 known species of terrestrial vertebrates, 91 species of mammals, 171 species of reptiles, 486
birds, 106 amphibians, and at least 82 species of freshwater fish (MOE, 2012) Coral reefs are found along the
entire coastline, with the three major coral reef areas being located in the East Coast, Southern Coast, and the
Gulf of Mannar (UICN, 2004).
Figure 1 : Sri Lanka, The pearl of Indian Ocean
UICN (2004). A Biodiversity Status Profile of Sub-tidal and Inter-tidal Habitats of the Rekawa, Ussangoda
and Kalametiya
Area. http://www.atl.org.mx/files/WaterPublications/ParaPrincCuerposdeAgua/5.pdf [Accessed on
2013/11/18]
YBA (1999). Biological diversity of Sri Lanka. Young Biologist Association, Sri
Lanka. http://ybiol.tripod.com/biodiv.htm [Accessed on 2013/11/18]
Ethical consideration
According to Neuman (2007) a major ethical dilemma in research is that which requires researchers to strike a
balance between the demand placed on them as professional scientists in pursuit of truth/Knowledge and their
subjects by the research. Qualitative researchers have documented the numerous ethical dilemmas that can
arise during data collection and field work (Klenke, 2008, 49). So in this study researcher will consider about
obtaining permission to conduct the study from local authorities responsible for the selected areas; Hambantota
& Kuliyapitiya
Research will include semi-structure interview and non participant observation. Therefore, before the interview
start, the researcher will explain the respondent about the purpose of the study and they have fully right to
answer on not answer questions. Klenke (2008,p.50) point out that among the most
important ethical principles, the qualitative researcher has to adhere to an informed consent, voluntary
participation, confidentiality, protection from harm and maintenance of the well being of the participant. So
that in this study researcher will offer freedom to respondent to participate for the research and researcher will
grantee that all the information collected from the research will be confidential.
Same time, researcher will try to avoid physical or psychological harm to respondent and try to conduct
interview with comfortable way. Finally researcher will obey to ethical principals such as respect for human
dignity, respect for voluntary participation, respect for privacy, respect for justice and inclusiveness, balancing
harm and benefits, minimum harms and maximum benefits (Klenke, 2008, p.51).
References :
Neuman , L.W. (2006). social research method: qualitative and quantitative methods. 6th ed .Pearson
education
Klenke,K (2008). Qualitative research in the study of leadership. Emerald group publication: Bingle
Thesis Outline
The thesis is based on research conducted in Hambantota Municipal council, Hambantota District, Southern
province in Sri Lanka. The thesis has six chapters. Chapter one describes the background of the study.
Furthermore, the chapter includes information about the study area, research objectives and research questions.
Chapter two presents the review of related literature to the study. The chapter reviews main literature sources
on solid waste management for sound environmental development. Special emphasis is given to solid waste
management in Sri Lanka and its impact on the environment. And also the chapter explains the conceptual
framework for the research study. The theoretical framework for the study will be based on Environmental
Impact Assessment (EIA) which is presented in the same chapter. Chapter three presents the methodology. It
explains the research design including research instruments, data collection methods and analyzing
methods. Chapter four presents empirical findings and analyzes of the findings in relation to the theoretical
and conceptual frameworks. Chapter five presents the key research findings and proposes some possible
improvements for processes of solid waste management for sustainable development in the area. The last
chapter of the thesis gives the conclusions drawn from the research findings.
When conducting the interviews, many of the respondents were very cautious when providing information
regarding the HMC and its waste management process due to political issues. So the researcher expended
much time and skill in clarifying the very significant purpose of this study and collect the necessary
information from the respondents.
The study was carried out in the time period parliamentary campaigns were on. It was difficult to contact with
respondents as they assumed the researcher also to be a member of a political party and supporting for the
campaigns. And at the same time the campaigns drew the attention of respondents and often the researcher’s
appointments had to be postponed. This cost a lot of time and strength and of course affected the data
collection process since the researcher could only reach the respondent after a few attempts.
This was also not helped by the fact that some officials have traveled abroad and the researcher had to persist
to meet such officials after several appointments, sometimes away from their offices.
As described by Bryman (2012, p.232), the most prominent of several different forms of self completion
questionnaires were postal or mail. Yet, in this study, the researcher personally met the household owners and
business owners in order to attenuate one of the most damaging limitations of postal questionnaire. It is the
low rate of response (Bryman, 2012, p.235). As the researcher met the respondent personally, positive attitudes
about the research were developed and respondents were willing to support the study.
However, there were some drawbacks of this tool. As pointed out by Bryman (2012, 235), there is no
opportunity to probe respondents for elaborate answers. It is difficult to ask a lot of questions with this tool
and therefore it is difficult to collect additional data for the study. In addition, the researcher can never be sure
who answered the questionnaire. Nevertheless, in some situations with the low literacy of the household or
business place, the researcher advised them to solicit support from someone else to complete the
questionnaires. Furthermore, by using SCQs, some kinds of response might be inappropriate and some data
might be missing because of the lack of supervision. To avoid these shortcomings the researcher used a few
steps as described by Bryman (2012, p.236). First a good cover letter was included into the questionnaire
package explaining the reason & importance of the research and why the respondent had been selected. It
provided the tips how to self complete the questionnaire and a guarantee of confidentiality of the
respondent. Moreover, the questionnaires included clear instructions and an attractive layout to improve the
response rate.
Moreover, there were many benefits with Semi structure interviews (SSI). As the instrument encourages two-
way communication, the researcher could develop a less intrusive environment between interviewer and
interviewee. The researcher could also confirm what is already known. Moreover, a large amount of detail was
generated with this tool. As the semi structured interview is fairly flexible and sensitive, the researcher could
get more data which is fairly reliable and easy to analyze. Yet, with the semi structured interview, it was not
possible to guarantee honesty of the participants. Flexibility of the interview may reduce reliability. Preferable
skills were needed to understand the verbal and even body language in order to know which areas to pursue
farther. The interviewer had to remain objective in order to guarantee not to influence the responses of the
interviewee.
Secondary data were useful as they provided more accurate and relevant data for the study. According to
Hilary (2010, p. 120), the major advantage of secondary data is that they provide easy access to knowledge.
Moreover they provide the researcher with readily available resources to examine characteristics of the
research and more often give the researcher access to more information than would be available in primary
data sets (Vartanian, 2010, p.3). It was less costly and took less time to collect secondary data compared to
primary data. However, there were some shortcomings such as secondary data are very large and complex and
they took the researcher long time to fully understand. Moreover, there were time issues also because some
data were not relevant as they were collected many years ago.
Sampling Method
When a small group is selected as representative of the whole mass it is known as sampling method (Devi,
1998, p.198). A sample is a set of elements selected in some way from a population. According
to Reddy & Acharyulu (2009, p.192), in a research study, the total elements are called population while the
set of elements are called sample. In this study the researcher used sampling methods as large samples are
generally hard to manage and it is of concern that the sample should be small enough to circumvent
unnecessary expenses and limited time. “Many of the research topics under social sciences are quite complex
and require a combination of sampling techniques to adequately explore the phenomena of interest” (Kemper
et al, 2003:283). As collecting data from a dispersed population is hard and the cost to reach to people is high,
the study used both probability sampling and non-probability or purposive sampling to select the research
sample within the study area (See figure 2).
Source: Developed by Author
I. Sampling for self completion questionnaire (SCQs)
In this study, sample selections were conducted with few stages. As pointed out by Bryman (2012, p.193), the
probability sampling method were needed to be employed at all the stages to select the sample for the study.
Households and business places of the area were subject to the SCQs. First, the researcher focused on selecting
samples among 2100 households in the area. The Household sample size was determined by using a
mathematic function mentioned below.
As the substitution of this function gives 95.4545, the sample size was 96 households. The sampling cannot
reduce sampling error. The confidence level of this sample was 90% with expected errors 0.10%. According to
Bryman (2012, p.190), Even with a well-crafted probability sample, a degree of sampling error is likely to
creep in. However, the probability sampling allows the researcher to employ tests of statistical significance that
permit inferences to be made about the sample from which the sample was selected (Brayman, 2012, p.190).
The systematic sample was used to select specific household within the whole households in the area. As
described by Bryman (2012, p.191), a variation on the simple random sampling is the systematic sample. The
researcher numbered all the households in the area and used online random generator as pointed out by
Brayman (2012, p.192), to select the numbers of the households to conduct the research. The house owners of
each specific selected household were given the self completion questionnaire in order to collect necessary
data for the study.
Secondly, the researcher used the same sampling method to select the business places. First the numbers of
samples were calculated with same function. There are 256 business places in HUC.
The substitution of this function gives 71.9101. So the sample size for business places was 72. Again, the
researcher used an online random generator to identify the sample numbers, which were afterwards assorted
from a pre-numbered business places name list.
Data analysis
Once data became available, the next phase of the research process is data analysis (Onwuegbuzie & Teddlie,
2003, p.351). The analysis is an almost completely mechanical procedure. The data collected with self
completion questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and non-participant observations have been integrated
in the analysis process. Before starting the analysis, the researcher noted downs all data, especially audio
records. Then the data was assorted according to its contents and coded in order to process analysis (Some data
within the self completion questionnaires were pre-coded). However, as the researcher used both qualitative
and quantitative data, different methods were used to analyze them.
The researcher followed three stages to carry on thematic analysis as described by King & Hprrocks (2010,
p.153) (see Figure 4). As the first step, the researcher refined descriptive codes and general context that related
to the research questions. Then, the identified codes were clustered and meaning of the cluster interpreted
according to research questions. The researcher applied all those interpretive codes in to full data sets. Next,
the researcher derived key themes according to the theoretical framework and constructed diagrams to
represent relationships between levels of coding. These themes were most important for the analysis. The
themes captured something important about the data in relation to the research question and represents phases
of conducting thematic analysis. When the final classification of the themes had been constructed, a discussion
of the findings was done with regard to the literature review and the data from documents reviewed. However,
qualitative data from the semi-structured interviews and non participant observations were edited every day to
get the clear transcriptions of the data set. All the notes typed for further analysis. NVivo, the Computer
assisted qualitative data analysis software were used for final analysis of qualitative data. NVivo provided a
range of tools for handle coded data records & information about them and accessed data records accurately
and swiftly.
Conclusion
Human ways of life have placed pressure on the environment and have caused imbalance in the eco systems by
the producing, consuming and wasting of natural resources. Most countries evidently have major effects on the
environment due to SW generation with economic development since the natural resources are used, and waste
and pollution are produced. Therefore, the concern towards the management of solid waste as an integral part
for sustainable development has increased.
This study explored the importance of SWM for sustainable development with the concern of new
development process in HMC in Sri Lanka. There were four research objectives to be achieved with the study.
The first objective was to study the characteristics of solid waste management practices in Hambantota
Municipal council. The researcher investigated the environmental impacts of solid waste management
practices in Hambantota Municipal council and assessed how waste management practices can contribute to
sustain the development processes in Hambantota District. Establishing an understanding of the perception
amongst local communities regarding solid waste management for sound environmental development was also
a concern.
In summary, the research findings revealed that there are significant issues with unauthorized waste disposal
practices due to the lack of proper waste management process. This has significantly impacted on the natural
environment and on Sound Environmental Development (SED) in the study area. The lack of Public waste
bins and proper waste collection processes have significantly affected the unauthorized waste disposal
practices. Moreover, the absence of sanitary land filling and inadequate processes by HISWMC are significant
issues with SWM. The absence of practical usage of regulation and laws is identified as a barrier to residents
engaging in proper waste management processes with recycling and waste separation because the council
could not enforce these practices. The lacks of knowledge, awareness and cooperation have been identified.
It is clear that improper waste management practices have a significant impact on the natural environment and
sustainable development in the study area. Thus, awareness about SWM impact on sound environmental
development or/and sustainable development in seemingly low. Therefore, it is important that the SWM should
be developed from the primary level. Waste storage and primary disposal are the dominant means of managing
waste. Thus, it has caused significant challenges in the study area. Therefore, waste separation from the
household level, proper storage, more efficient waste collection systems, and sustainable recovery and disposal
practices are identified as needed processes in the study area. Considering the nature and components of waste
generated by households and business places, the waste reduction, reuse, recycling and composting processes
would be more suitable in managing the challenge. These management options should be integrated in a
sustainable framework. Adequate consideration should be given to monitoring processes. Public education and
properly planned waste management programs also need to be introduced into the current waste management
system. Especially awareness programmes must be conducted in order to improve the knowledge about the
importance of SWM for sound environmental development in the area. The authorities should provide for the
introduction of complimentary programs and policy development.
The researcher identified SWM as the backbone of sound environmental development. Therefore, this research
study contributes to knowledge by determining the importance of SWM for sustainable development in the
newly developing HMC areas. The strength of this research study is the case study’s setting which is the newly
developed area, HMC, Hambantota, Sri Lanka. Further, this research study incorporates the views of the HMC
community to explore their level of understanding of environmental and sustainable development. This is
strength because community views have been largely examined with the research. Nevertheless, there is a need
for further scientific studies about the SWM process and its impact on the environment and sustainable
development.
Questionnaire