STUDY ON KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICES TOWARDS THE SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT IN KARAN DISTRICT, MOGADISHU SOMALIA

Background: Waste management has been a worldwide issue which most countries are finding the best ways of dealing with. Managing waste improperly poses threat to the health of individuals and the environment. Somalia as a developing country, its communities has been facing with a lot of challenges regarding waste management due to actions towards waste management. Objectives: To examine the knowledge, attitudes and practices of communities on waste management and how their actions have affected their health as well as their environments. Methodology: The study area comprises Karan district Mogadishu-Somalia. Self-administered random sampling method has been used for structured questionnaire and interview (N=150). SPSS V.16 has been used for data analysis. Results: The majority of the respondents 58(38.7%) were said sharps/and needles, while 41(27.3%) were said plastic waste, 31(20.7) were human excreta residues only 20 (13.3%) said none of them. The majority of the respondents 101(67.3%) heard the risks associated with waste while 49(32.7) of the respondents don’t heard risks associated with waste. The majority of the respondents 47(31.3%) were said breading of vector, while 29(19.3%) were said skin disease, 19(12.7%) were said respiratory disease while 55(36.7%) were pollution of soil, air and water sources. Besides, the attitude of the respondents, among the respondents 28(18.7%) were strongly agree that they care about waste management (reduce, reuse, and recycle), 91(60.7%) were agree, 14(9.3%) were not sure, 13(8.7%) were disagree while 4(2.7%) were strongly disagree. Moreover, most of the respondents indicates that 75(50.0%) girls are the persons that deals with the wastes, while 63(42.0%) said mothers are responsible, while only 3(2.0%) said boys and 9(6.0%) said father. Conclusion: The findings revealed that Karan district community have good level of knowledge as well as have positive attitude but their practice towards solid waste management was poor.