Abstract:
Little attention has been given to solid waste management in Senior High Schools meanwhile their
population and consumption pattern keeps on increasing. The study was conducted in senior high
schools within the Ashanti Region to determine the composition and generation rate of solid waste in
the selected senior high schools. An extensive field investigation was used for quantification and
analysis of the composition of solid waste in fifteen senior high schools in the Ashanti Region of
Ghana. Averagely, waste generated were organic (70.91%), rubbers and plastics (11.24%), metals
(5.64%), textiles (4.67%), other waste (2.77%), glass/ceramics (2.64%) and papers (2.13%). The per capita
per day generation rate ranged from 0.02 to 0.13 kg/cap/day with an average of 0.056 kg/cap/day. The
population of the schools and generation rate per capita per day of the schools had a negative
correlation coefficient (-0.05). More than 90% of the waste generated in the schools could be dealt with
through waste reduction, recycling, and composting. It was recognized that a greater percentage of the
waste generated in the selected senior high schools was organic and therefore composting should be
encouraged as a way of effectively managing such components of the waste stream and whipping up
the students’ knowledge in waste as a resource.
Key words: Waste generation, solid waste, waste characterization, source sorting, composting.
