Residents’ willingness to pay for improved solid waste management in Dodoma municipality, Tanzania

Masters ThesisThis study was carried out to assess people’s willingness to pay for improved solid waste management (SWM) in Dodoma Municipality. The specific objectives where to determine the residents’ willingness to pay (WTP) for improved SWM in the Municipality, evaluate factors which influence the WTP for improved SWM in the Municipality and to identify a suitable model for sustainable SWM in the municipality. The primary data were collected through stratified simple random sampling with proportionate allocation from 200 respondents from five streets which were divided into three income groups (low, middle and high). Data were analyzed using descriptive and quantitative methods. The choice modeling method and multinomial logit model were employed to elicit the WTP for improved SWM and to assess the factors that determine WTP for improved SWM. The findings’ show that the majority of the respondents (63%) were willing to pay for improved SWM, whereby 58% were willing to pay TZS 3000 and 5% were willing to pay TZS 4000. The rest (37%) of the respondents opted for the status quo which was TZS 2000. The findings show that collection frequency, transport mode, disposal method, charge per month, age, marital status, education level, occupation, quantities of solid waste generated, location of the dump, and income level of the households were significant factors in influencing people’s willingness to pay for improved SWM in Dodoma Municipality. In view of the main findings of the study, several policy proposals are suggested. These include increasing trucks and collection frequency per week; extending the study to other parts of the country, investigate the streets which do not benefit from solid waste collection services in order to find out if the households from those streets are willing to pay for the services, and investigation on existing SWM at commercial and industrial centers