The study, conducted by Sibongangani Khonelihle Mngomezulu of the Department of Built Environment at Central University of Technology in Bloemfontein, surveyed 255 households across three deliberately contrasting neighbourhoods: Walmer-E as an informal, low-income township; Summerstrand as a relatively affluent, formally serviced suburb; and Gqeberha Central as a mixed residential-commercial urban core. With an 84 percent response rate from 303 targeted households, the survey achieved unusually strong participation for household-level waste research. Respondents were asked about how often they generated different waste types, how they stored and disposed of materials, what challenges they perceived in their local waste systems, and whether they were aware of existing municipal policies.

The statistical architecture of the study was rigorous. Mngomezulu applied Pearson’s chi-square tests to check whether differences in waste-generation frequency across the three areas were real or merely sampling noise, reporting effect sizes with Cramér’s V. For perception data, Welch’s analysis of variance was used because group variances and sample sizes differed, followed by Games-Howell post hoc comparisons to pinpoint which area pairs differed significantly. Principal component analysis, with a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value of 0.936 and a highly significant Bartlett’s test, distilled 26 Likert-scale items into four underlying dimensions of sustainable waste management: governance, social behaviour, economic feasibility, and education and knowledge.

The waste-generation findings are striking in their specificity. In Gqeberha Central, 80 percent of respondents reported generating plastics daily — the highest single frequency recorded anywhere in the study. Organic waste was also generated daily by 57.6 percent of Central residents and 53.7 percent of Summerstrand residents. Walmer-E showed a fundamentally different rhythm: plastics were generated monthly by 54.5 percent of respondents, old clothes by 59.1 percent, glass by 60.2 percent, and metal cans by 52.3 percent. This monthly concentration of durable and recyclable streams suggests that Walmer households consume and discard differently, potentially reflecting lower purchasing frequency, different storage capacity, or distinct patterns of reuse before disposal.

Chi-square tests confirmed that these cross-area differences were statistically robust for the four waste streams that met expected-frequency criteria. Plastics produced a chi-square value of 188.28 with a Cramér’s V of 0.609; nappies and wipes reached 216.25 with a V of 0.652; glass scored 179.59 with V = 0.597; and cans and metals registered 164.17 with V = 0.568. All four exceeded the conventional threshold of 0.5 for a large effect, meaning that residential area alone explains a substantial portion of the variation in how often households generate these materials. Sparse cells prevented reliable testing for specialised streams such as hazardous waste, e-waste, garden waste, and construction debris, which the study treats descriptively rather than inferentially.

Collection systems told a more nuanced story. Routine household waste was generally well served: 69.4 percent of respondents reported weekly collection, 22.0 percent daily, and only 1.2 percent said their waste was never collected. When collections were missed, service typically resumed within a week (32.5 percent of respondents) or a fortnight (31.0 percent). But the picture changed dramatically for specialised waste. In both Walmer and Summerstrand, identical numbers of respondents — 38 for hazardous waste, 61 for batteries, 63 for electronic waste, 58 each for garden and construction waste — reported using alternative disposal methods outside the formal municipal system. In Gqeberha Central, old clothes (68 respondents), garden waste (58), and construction waste (58) were similarly diverted into informal channels.

Perceived challenges varied enormously by area, and the pattern is telling. Gqeberha Central recorded the highest mean scores across nearly every challenge dimension: diminished tourism at 4.62 on a five-point scale, clogged drains at 4.46, dust and litter at 4.31, inadequate awareness programmes at 4.28, and cultural and traditional practices at 4.27. Walmer followed with clogged drains at 4.43 and dust and litter at 4.28. Summerstrand, by contrast, reported greenhouse gas emissions as its top concern at just 2.73, with clogged drains scoring a mere 1.84 and diminished tourism 1.45. The gap between Central’s 4.62 and Summerstrand’s 1.45 on tourism impacts — a spread of more than three full scale points — illustrates how differently the same municipal waste system is experienced depending on where one lives.

Perhaps the most alarming finding concerns public awareness. When asked whether they knew about existing waste-management systems or policies in Nelson Mandela Bay, 68.2 percent of respondents said they were unaware. Only 30.2 percent reported any awareness, and 1.6 percent of responses were missing. This knowledge gap persisted across all three areas regardless of income or education level, suggesting that the problem lies not in individual households but in the communication infrastructure connecting municipal authorities to residents. The study links this awareness deficit to reduced participation in recycling, waste separation, and compliance with regulations, and points to South African research showing that indiscriminate dumping correlates strongly with low awareness and limited service access.

The four-factor model derived from principal component analysis revealed that governance dominates the sustainable waste-management landscape, explaining 51.68 percent of variance with an eigenvalue of 13.437 and a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.933 — exceptional internal consistency for a social science construct. Social behaviour followed at 8.25 percent of variance, economic feasibility at 7.57 percent, and education and knowledge at 4.44 percent. Welch’s ANOVA confirmed that all four factors differed significantly across the three areas, with eta-squared values of 0.397 for governance, 0.494 for social behaviour, 0.455 for economic feasibility, and 0.347 for education and knowledge — all large effects. Games-Howell comparisons showed that every pair of areas differed significantly on governance and economic feasibility, while for social behaviour, Walmer and Summerstrand did not differ significantly from each other (p = 0.294), indicating that area differences are construct-specific rather than uniform.

The study’s five-year review of municipal waste-quantity data exposed a deeper governance crisis beneath the household findings. Published figures for Nelson Mandela Bay are not comparable across years: the 2019/20 estimate of 571,482 tonnes was a planning figure for two landfill sites, while the 2020/21 figure of 285,652 tonnes reflected waste received at licensed landfills. No comparable figure exists for 2021/22 because no landfill audit was conducted during the COVID-19 outbreak. The 2022/23 total of 191,670 tonnes covers only seven months due to non-functional weighbridges and a backlog in manual records. Reported waste diversion collapsed from 1,463 tonnes in 2022/23 to just 463 tonnes in 2023/24 — a 68.4 percent decline — though the absence of a comparable landfill denominator makes it impossible to determine whether this reflects genuine contraction in recovery activity or simply deteriorating record-keeping. Either interpretation, the study argues, demands urgent attention: weak recovery means valuable organic material, plastics, paper, glass, and metals are lost to disposal, while weak recording makes it impossible to recognise the contributions of informal reclaimers and private-sector recyclers.

Mngomezulu’s recommendations are deliberately area-specific rather than uniform. For Walmer-E, the study proposes scheduled dry-recyclables collection, neighbourhood buy-back and repair hubs, community composting, and accessible drop-off points, with indicators tracking kilograms of recyclables per household per month and income flowing to local enterprises. For Summerstrand, two-stream kerbside separation of dry recyclables and residual waste, home and community composting, and extended producer responsibility-supported collection of packaging and e-waste are recommended. For Gqeberha Central, the study calls for high-frequency separate collection, organics services for food businesses, staffed recovery points, and formal integration of informal reclaimers, with indicators measuring tonnes recovered per day, overflow incidents, drain blockages, and reclaimer income and safety compliance. Across all three areas, the study urges the municipality to adopt a current Integrated Waste Management Plan with ward-level targets, repair and calibrate landfill weighbridges, digitise daily tonnage records, publish comparable annual data, and respond to the 68.2 percent awareness gap through multilingual campaigns, schools, ward committees, and clear service calendars.

Subject of Research: Comparative analysis of household municipal solid waste management practices and perceptions across income groups in Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, South Africa

Article Title: Municipal solid waste management systems in Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality: a comparative analysis across diverse income groups

Article References: Mngomezulu, S. K. (2026). Municipal solid waste management systems in Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality: a comparative analysis across diverse income groups. Frontiers in Sustainability, 7, Article 1941833. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsus.2026.1941833

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/frsus.2026.1941833

Keywords: municipal solid waste, circular economy, Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa, waste management, recycling, income inequality, governance, public awareness, waste generation, urban sustainability, household survey