Abstract

Ethiopia is facing serious of environmental challenges concerning solid wastes management in urban areas which is a censorious environmental deterioration. Open burning of such solid wastes at different place in and around town like on Public Street, communal burning area, near home and other similar places is one of the principal problem. Furthermore, there is gap in knowledge and lack of awareness about health effect concerned chemical emitted from such smoke in most of the communities. This study was focused on community practice assessment of open burning of solid wastes and analysis change in soil compositions due to such practice. For the implementation of this research, data were collected using questionnaire, guided field trip and physico-chemical analysis. Mixture of purposive and random sampling techniques was applied. Physico-chemical data were obtained from both laboratory and heavy metals analysis (Cd, Ni, Cr, Co, Cu, Pb). Atomic absorption spectroscopy revealed that Ni was the highest with concentration of 123.40 ± 0.00 and the next highest was Pb (120.00 ± 56.57) whereas the lowest heavy metal were Cd and Cr with concentration of 0.00±0.00. The dominant and potential contaminants heavy metals in the study areas were Ni, Co, Cu and Pb; thus expected that they come from external sources. The results obtained from both community practice assessment and physico-chemical analysis provide a strong justification that the impact of open burning of solid wastes is not only on human being but also environment like soil. Community practice assessment and field guided trips were another evidence that the areas of the have been polluted due to large contents of different synthetics polymers, wood, textile and organic matters (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Graphical abstract.