Environmental Policy and Solid waste management. A case of Lodwar Municipality, Turkana County, Kenya.

Abstract

Purpose: The formulation of Environment Policy 2018 of Turkana County is based on the requirement by the (Constitution of Kenya; 2010 and the County Governments Act, 2013) which gives powers to the county government to formulate policies and enact laws. It is this provision that Turkana County sort to formulate policy to address the management of waste in Lodwar municipality and its environment. The purpose of this article was to determine the influence of the Environmental Policy on Solid waste management in a case of Lodwar Municipality, Turkana County, Kenya. The objectives of the study were; To establish impact of private-public partnership on sustainable waste management in Lodwar Municipality, Turkana County; To assess the impact of political good will on solid waste management in Lodwar Municipality, Turkana County; To determine adoption of emission-reducing technologies on solid management in Lodwar municipality, Turkana county and to assess the level of integration of environmental policy with socio-economic policies to boost solid waste management in Lodwar Municipality, Turkana County, Kenya. Methodology: A cross-sectional descriptive study design was adopted to target residents of Lodwar town, management and municipal workers, traders, fisherfolks, county National Environment Management Authority officers and public health department officers at the county level. Furthermore, the descriptive research design was employed and utilized structured and semi structure questionnaires. Out of the population of 110 target groups the sample size used for the study was 33 as stated by Mugenda and Mugenda 2008 that when a population is below 10000 the sample size should be 10% or 30% of the target population hence 30% was ideal for the study. The quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, mean scores, and content thematic respectively. Findings: The findings of the study indicated that, there were no monitoring framework in place to determine the effectiveness of the policy, lack of awareness of existence of the policy amongst the municipality employees, lack of political good will and lack of waste regulating system. Unique Contribution to Theory, Policy and Practice: In this regard, the study recommends the need for municipality to establish monitoring system to measure the effectiveness of the environmental policy in  addressing the solid waste management issues; there was need of the county government to provide enough resources to support the strategies lied by the policies for environmental sustainability; The community members , municipality and county government staff need to be sensitized on the existence of the environmental policy; a legal framework ought to be developed to provide the regulatory  and fiscal instruments needed to achieve Turkana environment policy objectives.