Waste Management and Health Impacts in Rafah Secondary Schools, Gaza Strip, Palestine

Abstract

Waste has been considered as a major environmental issue everywhere, besides the waste we create at home, school and other public places, there are also those from hospitals, industries, farms and other sources. This study aimed to assess school waste management and determining the environmental knowledge, attitude, and practice level among school student in the age group, 12 grades in governmental secondary school in Rafah city. A descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted on four governmental secondary schools. The sample consisted of 153 male and female students, were selected randomly. Three Tools where used to collect data; self-administered questionnaire for students, waste sorting and observational checklist, for waste management in selected schools. Data where analysed using the statistical package for social sciences software. Additionally, most of students' parents income less than 1000 NIS, which represent 75.2%. Regarding fathers job and KAP, there is statistical significant P-value (0.010). Furthermore the finding show that students with excellent average have better mean score in all domains also there is statistical significant deference's (0.05) in KAP for student due to father educational level. Regarding Students' Knowledge Attitude Practice about environmental health hazard, the overall mean percentage for students' scores ranged from 69.8% to 82.8%. Attitude elicited a higher scores (85.9%) followed but knowledge (82.8%), and practice elicited a lowest scores (69.8%). According to the waste sorting the result noted that the largest amount of waste was text books and papers (24.75%) among male students, while female students the largest waste was waste incineration (21.12%). In regard the observational checklist results show that the most school had a waste bins inside the classroom with 100%, and most schools had a clean furniture with average 40%. The findings of this study may be useful in accentuate the importance of improving our students' environmental awareness and attitude to insure protecting our environment from further deterioration.Keywords: waste management - waste Impact - solid waste - environmental health - environmental education - health education - secondary school - Gaza Strip