dc.description.abstract |
Developing countries like Sri Lanka are having huge stinking garbage dumps which is a “silent
looming crisis” as cities grow day by day. Even though, there are strategies already
implemented in municipal solid waste management (MSWM), most of those were either failed
or not sufficient to address the current waste crisis. This is mainly due to the poor planning
and implementation practices in MSWM, where the relevant authorities are responsible. They
are not enthusiastic in pursuing solutions for the growing public concerns towards MSWM.
Because they are not aware about the exact importance of proper MSWM for the country.
Thus, there is a need of an attitudinal and behavioural change to overcome this problem.
Despite the availability of research on community attitudes and behaviours in MSWM, a gap
in literature could be identified in identifying the values, attitudes, and behaviours of
authorities in planning and implementation of MSWM in Sri Lanka. Therefore, this research
intends to provide a culture-based solution for MSWM by investigating values, attitudes, and
behaviours of authority personals in MSWM. A Comprehensive literature review was
conducted to review the concepts of value, attitude, and behaviour in MSWM context,
including the waste management strategies adopted in MSWM. Positioning this research in an
interpretivist stance, a qualitative approach was used adapting qualitative survey as the
research strategy to achieve the aim of the research. Seventeen semi structured interviews were
held with the key authorities who responsible for planning and implementation of MSWM in
Sri Lanka. Manual content analysis was used to analyse the results of qualitative survey. The
verdicts of the research revealed the common MSWM practices in Sri Lanka, which are open
dumping, landfilling, composting, adaptation of 3R concept and so on along with the
accompanying values, attitudes, and behaviours. Positive values, attitudes and behaviours
along with noteworthy negative values, attitudes and behaviours such as community
cooperation is less in MSWM, open dumping of waste is the easiest method of getting rid of
waste and adapting new technologies is not affordable to Sri Lanka, which is result in the
behaviours like open dumping of waste without any treatment and reluctancy in allocating
fund for latest technologies in MSWM. Although many positive values are held by Sri Lankans
in MSWM, such values are not reflected through the attitudes and behaviours. Moreover, it
was revealed through the findings that future positive behaviour of an individual influences
changing the attitude of another while creating a positive value to the authorities responsible
for MSWM. Thus, the research could be concluded that behaviours should be improved as it
was already revealed that the cycle of culture management can do a great influence on
managing MSW. Finally, the study was concluded by proposing strategies to manage MSW
from a cultural perspective by refining the conceptual framework. The knowledge generated
through this research can be used by respective authorities in Sri Lanka in successful planning
and implementing MSWM strategies. |
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