Assessment of Solid Waste Management Practices in Ilorin Metropolis of Kwara State

This study assessed solid waste management practices among waste collectors in Ilorin Metropolis of Kwara State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique was employed to select 200 registered waste collectors from all commercial waste in Ilorin Metropolis of Kwara State. Data were collected using a structured interview schedule and questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean and percentage, while inferential statistics such as Chi-square was used to test for hypothesis. It revealed that 78.0% of the respondents were male while 22.0% of the respondents were female, the mean age of the respondents was 42.61 ± 8.46 years. Efficiency in transporting waste to designated disposal or recycling site ranked 1st with the WMS of 2.88 in waste management practices carried out. Meanwhile, poor income of an individual contributes to poor waste management, and inadequate incinerator to burn refuse affect the management of waste (WMS = 1.83) ranked 1st for the constraints in the study area. There was a significant relationship between some selected socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents and solid waste management practices such as religion (x² = 47.391, p = 0.006), level of education (x² = 73.741, p = 0.001), secondary occupation (x² = 120.849, p = 0.000) among the respondents in the study area. It can be concluded that since transportation efficiency is perceived as the major solid waste management practices in Ilorin Metropolis therefore its recommended that maintaining or improving waste transport infrastructure (roads, vehicles, transfer sites) is essential.