Municipal solid waste in Kuwait: Trends and attitudes on collection, separation and willingness to pay

The results of a questionnaire survey of nearly 1500 random households residing in 64 districts in Metropolitan Kuwait are presented. The frequency distribution of the family size, monthly income, type of residence, and number of employed drivers/servants of the sample population are presented. Also given are the distributional characteristics of the number of monthly gatherings, the number of guests per gathering, as well as those of the weekly grocery shopping and the family expenditure on shopping. On the average, a sample household generated 7.1 kg of solid waste each day. This rate is nearly 20 percent less than that generated in 1996 in Kuwait. The interrelationships between the households' socio-economic traits and their daily solid waste generation rates are also examined. The solid waste generation rate of the sample households increased with the increasing number of persons per family and the number of guests per gathering. Households' attitudes concerning the collection, separation, and willingness to pay for the management of household solid waste are also presented. A number of recommendations end the paper.