Socio Economic Characteristics of the Households That Generate Waste in Zuru Town, Kebbi State

The investigation was conducted on socio economic characteristics of the households that generate waste in Zuru town, kebbi state. Data was derived from two sources, primary and secondary. Primary data was collected through questionnaire administration, in-depth interviews and Focus Group Discussion from the respondents. Secondary data on population and household sampling was derived from the recent (2015) house listing exercise by the National Primary Health Care Agency for the Polio Immunization exercise. List of settlement was sourced from the NPC (2006) Census and housing data. 312 households were given one basket each by the researchers to ensure unbiased determination of the types of waste generated by the three residential categories in the study area. The data was analyzed using frequency, percentage, Chi-square, and ANOVA. The result shows that 58.3% of the respondents are female, 32.1% fall between the ages 30 and 39 years, while only 3.8% are above 60 years. Majority, (70.2%) possessed primary education; many (36.2%) are business personnel and only 9.6 of the respondents earn above ₦100,000 per month. Result further shows that majority (80%) of the waste are non-biodegradable. Result also revealed that many (42.3%) of the households burns their waste. The Chi-square of association test revealed a statistically significant relationship only between the occupation of the respondents and waste generation (ᵪ (3) =8.782, p=.032). The three-way ANOVA also revealed no significant difference in waste generation among the residential categories in Zuru town (F (1, 90) = 2.215, p= .140). The study concludes that government should adequately sensitize households on menace of burning waste anyhow, since majority of the respondents are not aware of the health hazards associated with the burning of waste.