Solid Waste Management Practices, Policies, and the Problems Encountered by the Selected Higher Education Institution in Dasmariñas City, Cavite

The study was conducted to describe the solid waste management of selected higher education institution in the city of Dasmariñas, Cavite. Specifically, it aimed to describe the school characteristics of private colleges; describe the types and volume of solid waste generated daily by the private colleges; determine the solid waste management practices employed by the private colleges for different type of solid wastes; identify the problems encountered by the private colleges on solid waste management; identify the solid waste management policies complied by the private colleges; and determine if there is a relationship between solid waste generated and school characteristics. The participant schools were 29 private colleges in the City of Dasmariñas, Cavite. The respondents are the Pollution Control Officer or the person in-charged of solid waste management of private colleges in Cavite. There was also the participation of 200 students divided proportionally by the number of private colleges to make the study more reliable. Most of the respondents revealed that among the top solid waste that they generate is recyclable wastes in Rank 1; followed by biodegradable wastes then hazardous wastes. The least generated among the wastes is residual waste, all of them generated less than 25kg of residual wastes per day. They used various ways of storing their wastes but the most used is garbage bags, with regards to the collection/transportation of solid wastes to disposal sites, most schools relied on the local government units and only a handful were in contract with private firms to collect and transport their solid waste. Solid wastes from these schools are collected by LGU’s weekly and private firms on a daily basis. Schools also employed certain methods of disposing of their wastes. Most of them chose land filling as their own way of disposal (48.28%). The rest used open dumping, composting, and incineration. From the study it was also found that the type/volume of solid wastes generated by schools is significantly associated with the schools’ years of existence, population of students, faculty and staff, and operation hours per day.