Waste management communication policy for effective citizen awareness

Municipal Solid Waste Management (MSWM) has clear implications on livability of cities and public health. Unfortunately, MSWM is often considered the responsibility of the Government alone. On the other hand, there is near unanimity world over among all key stakeholders on the need for citizens to involve themselves well in this process since they are the primary generators of municipal solid waste. However, lack of awareness among citizens and communication between Government and citizens is a major impediment in realizing this. Therefore, there is a need for some policy initiatives that would bridge this communication gap. Accordingly, this paper develops a framework for formulating a Waste Management Communication Policy (WMCP) that identifies the key concerns of the citizens and the appropriate channels to create awareness among them. In this paper, econometrics based Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR) models are developed to identify appropriate communication channels based on socio-economic categories of the citizens. The models and their analyses provide actionable insights for planning a targeted outreach campaign for MSWM awareness. (C) 2020 The Society for Policy Modeling. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.