**Identifying Challenges and Barriers to Participating in the Source Separation of Waste Program in Tabriz, Northwest of Iran: A Qualitative Study from the Citizens' Perspective**

#### **Towhid Babazadeh 1, Haidar Nadrian 2, Mohammad Mosaferi <sup>3</sup> and Hamid Allahverdipour 4,\***


Received: 2 August 2018; Accepted: 27 August 2018; Published: 29 August 2018

**Abstract:** There are many problems with the waste management systems (WMSs) in developing countries. In order to provide applicable strategies for improving the WMSs in these countries, there is a need to identify the barriers and challenges at the community level. Our aim in the present study was to explain the challenges and barriers in front of the citizen's participation in the Source Separation of Waste (SSW) program in Tabriz, Iran. In this qualitative research, 13 citizens were invited to participate and were then interviewed. Data were analyzed with the content analysis approach. MAXQDA10 was applied to facilitate the organization of data. Four core categories of the barriers to sourcing the separation of household waste were identified: (a) problems in the collecting system of waste; (b) a lack of responsibility among citizens; (c) insufficient awareness among citizens, and (d) the expectation of receiving incentives. The findings of the study indicated the potential infrastructure barriers that may hinder in-process household solid waste separation attempts. Recycling investors, environmental health policymakers, and stakeholders should take into account these barriers while designing, implementing, and/or reorienting the Source Separation of Waste (SSW) programs.

**Keywords:** source separation of waste; waste management; household waste

#### **1. Introduction**

The progressive enlargement of towns and cities in developing countries, without proper planning and organization to solve the problems of crowded populations, leads to numerous environmental issues such as air pollution and waste production [1]. The disposal and management of waste is rapidly becoming a social and environmental concern in the most of developing countries [2,3]. Along with urbanization, many factors may have contributed to the phenomenon of waste production. For instance, small rises in income and changes in lifestyle and living standards in the urban areas have nowadays become major challenges for municipalities, especially in developing countries [4]. In many developing countries, a lack of cooperation between organizations, a limited level of resources, population growth and urbanization, poor management, a lack of financial resources, and a lack of technical skills in municipal authorities have led to difficulties and complexities in the management of municipal solid

waste (MSW) [5–8]. However, in developed countries, the process of waste management is shown to be optimized when the citizens and the local governments jointly adopt the appropriate behaviors [9]. The poor management of MSW may lead to consequences such as air pollution, a loss of aesthetic values, and economic losses [10], as well as hygienic problems including unpleasant smells and the transmission of diseases [11].

Obviously, the proper management of MSW is necessary to reduce the direct and indirect health risks for people and environment as well [12]. There are several procedures for waste management, including incineration, biogas production, composting, landfilling, and recycling. However, nowadays, sustainable recycling methods and reusing the waste are suggested as significantly important methods to managing MSW [13–17]. These methods not only reduce the amount of produced waste and prevent further contamination of the environment; they also help the waste managers save financial, natural and energy resources [18].

According to a previous study in Nepal (as a developing country), only about 5% of MSW are recycled [4], whereas in Austria and Germany (as developed countries), this amount is reported to be about 56% and 66% [19], respectively. A reason for successful MSW in developed countries is the application of different technical systems for the Source Separation of Waste (SSW), which is associated with the active participation of the citizens [20,21]. Several factors may be associated with the level of participation in the SSW among the inhabitants. Based on a meta-analysis conducted on the determinants of recycling behaviors, convenience with the behaviors, moral norms, information, and environmental concern were the strongest predictors of recycling behaviors among householders [22]. In a review on recycling behaviors and waste-sorting systems, convenience (adequate access to sorting facilities, good service, etc.) as well as knowledge and information were reported as the most relevant factors that encourage waste sorting in households [23]. Intrinsic factors, such as attitude toward recycling and environmental concern, may also affect sorting behavior [24]. Zhang et al., in another study in China, concluded that people's attitude toward waste separation at the source was the main predictor forming waste separation behavior [25]. Furthermore, sorting skills [26] and a person's knowledge on how to recycle [27] were reported as factors that may influence recycling participation. Social characteristics such as reading newspapers and books, watching TV, and using the Internet [28] are also noted as affecting factors on the knowledge of people regarding MSW and separation at source programs.

In two previous Iranian studies, Damghani et al. [11] and Jamshidi et al. [29] reported that only about 5% and 8% of MSW are recycled, respectively. Such a lack in recycling solid waste in Iran may be due to the inefficiency of SSW [11]. In Iranian studies, the main reasons for the lack of success in implementing SSW were reported to be the lack of participation among the citizens, a lack of proper and systematic implementation of SSW by the contractors, and institutional problems at the level of waste management, such as the high cost of contractors [30,31].

Despite all of the above-mentioned barriers, the most important barriers to implementing SSW are reported to be the lack of participation among citizens and improper planning for SSW management [30–32]. Discovering the reasons for the lack of cooperation and participation in SSW among citizens seems to be helpful in providing effective and feasible solutions to improve waste management system in the cities, especially for the source separation of recyclable waste.

According to the study conducted by Zazouli et al. in Tabriz, 1200 tonnes per capita of waste is generated, among which organic materials (58.5%) and recyclable materials (such as paper, plastic, metals, and glass) (26.2%) are the most prevalent compositions (Table 1). They concluded that about 85% of waste can be recycled in Tabriz, which may play a significant role in reducing environmental pollution [33]. Despite the importance of recycling plans, the history of waste recycling programs in Iran is not more than three decades.

In Iran, in 1997, the Tehran Municipal Recycling and Converting Agency, with the assistance of the World Bank, developed "The Waste Law". The law comprised 20 provisions and nine notes, which was approved by the Islamic Consultative Assembly on 20 February 2004. In the approved "Waste Management Law", there was an emphasis on the importance of the source separation of wastes. The "Waste Management Law" contained an executive code that was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers on 5 May 2006 in order to increase the enforcement of the law [34]. Based on the legislation, a SSW plan was initiated in 2006 throughout Tabriz metropolitan city, which was aimed to separate household recyclable waste, including plastic, bottles, paper, glass, and all types of metals. [35]. After 12 years of implementing the SSW management system in the city and conducting various simultaneous efforts such public education through mass media, education in schools, and designing and putting up separate boxes for dry and wet waste, there are still huge and noticeable gaps in the successful implementation of the SSW. Consequently, despite the high cost spent to run the program, more than 250 million kilograms of the recyclable materials per day are inevitably landfilled in Tabriz [36]. Such an insufficiency in the SSW not only causes the loss of the national capital, it also results in the destruction and pollution in the environment. Therefore, we conducted this study to identify the challenges and obstacles of participation in the SSW program from the viewpoints of citizens in Tabriz.


**Table 1.** Available waste composition data in Tabriz [33].

#### **2. Materials and Methods**

#### *2.1. Study Area*

Tabriz is the largest city and the capital of East Azerbaijan Province in Iran. Tabriz is located in the northwest of Iran (38◦4 35.76 N, 46◦16 48 E) (Figure 1). The average maximum and minimum temperatures are about 15.7 ◦C and 6.8 ◦C, respectively. The average annual precipitation of this area is estimated as approximately 250–300 mm. According to the latest national census, the population of Tabriz in 2016 was 1,773,033 with the population growth rate of 0.97% from 2012 to 2016 [37].

#### *2.2. Solid Waste Management System in Tabriz*

According to the waste management law in Iran, each municipality is responsible for all of the wastes of the city, excluding industrial and special wastes. The main responsibility of the Municipal Waste Management Organization (MWMO) is to collect and landfill the MSW of the city (Khatoon Abad). Besides this task, source separation of the waste for recycling and the establishment of a composting facility are the two other main activities of the organization. As mentioned above, the MWMO started the source separation program in 2006. To implement the program, the MWMO has signed a contract with the private sector. Based on the contract, the private sector was responsible for collecting separated wastes from all around the city. The responsibility of MWMO was to provide the private sector with financial resources and necessary facilities, and train the citizens on how to separate the wastes. According to the program, a number of trained educators had face-to-face visits to the citizens' houses, and provided the households with educational leaflets. Moreover, particular yellow-colored bags were distributed among the households of each region for free in order to separate wet waste from the dry (such as plastic, bottles, paper, glass and all types of metals) and deliver them to predefined garbage trailers and/or bins. The garbage trailers designed to collect dry waste

have melodies, and come twice a week (on Mondays and Fridays) to collect dry waste. After being collected, the dry waste is transferred to the recycling stations to separate the different types of waste. Then, the separated materials in the recycling stations are transferred to particular recycling plants. The materials such as the bottles of polyethylene terephthalate are exported to overseas, and some other plastic materials, after melting, are reused to produce plastic material appliances. Also, the non-recyclable materials and some of the recyclable materials such as glass are landfilled due to the absence of glass recycling factories in the country.

**Figure 1.** The study area in East Azerbaijan, Tabriz.

#### *2.3. Participants and Sampling Procedures*

This was a qualitative study with a conventional content analysis approach conducted to explore the obstacles and challenges of the citizens' participation in the SSW program in Tabriz, Iran. The participants were selected from those living in the city through a purposeful sampling method with maximum variation in age, gender, job, level of education, and residency. This means that we tried to invite the individuals from different age groups, types of jobs, levels of education, places of residence, and both genders to participate in the study. In order to assess the economic status of the participants, they were asked to classify their own place of residence into the regions with weak, medium, and good economic status. Thus, the authors were sure of maximum variation in the socio-demographic and economic characteristics of the citizens who participated in the study. Thirteen individuals participated in the in-depth interviews. In order to invite citizens to participate in the study, the first researcher had a phone call with the citizens who were elected from the list of residents with health records in the health centers of the city. Based on the Iranian health system, all of the households in the cities throughout the country have health records in the health centers. On the phone, the citizens were invited to participate in the study, and if they agreed, they were suggested to have an appointment with the first researcher in the closest health center to their house. After coordination, interviews were conducted at a time and place (dominantly a private room in the health centers) preferred by the participants. As the method of data analysis in the present study was conventional content analysis, which is a descriptive approach, our premise was descriptive

saturation [38]. In the last two interviews, no new descriptive code, category, or theme emerged from the analyzing of data, and the authors, based on their experiences [39], concluded that descriptive data saturation was happened. If we think of our data in terms of rich and thick [40], our emphasis in the present study was on the richness of data. In other words, we tried to have a detailed, intricate, many-layered, and nuanced data rather than a thick data, with high quantity. As we had in-depth interviews with the participants, we assured about the depth of the data [41]. More details on the participants are displayed in Table 2. Inclusion criteria for the study included living in Tabriz and a willingness to participate in the study.


