The issue of poor waste management in rural communities is still a challenge and whose practices are still elementary in developing countries. This paper evaluates and assesses the solid waste management in rural communities using litter survey technique, Muyuka, Cameroon. The objectives were; to assess visible litter along the roadway and main road in Muyuka town, to determine the litter rate within the study area, and to estimate the most litter item and lastly to evaluate the effects of the most littered item on the environment. Litter survey check listing was developed and done with site reconnaissance survey and with a GPS. Purposive data collections along four roadways, four main roads and from seven different grids were also collected and analyzed using SPSS. Results show that roadways were twice heavily littered (22,294) than main road (10,204) because of lack of local storage facilities, poor follow up, and sensitization campaign. Also 08.46 litter items/metre were visible at a detectability function of 85% (i.e. items greater than 1 m2 in surface area) with atleast 04.94 plastics litter/metre of which 03.50 plastics littered was LDPE plastic type coupling with the low decay rate of plastics (λ = 0.0014) on the environment, due to resins. Total visible litter in Grid 1 and 7 were 1544 and 8394 respectively. Conclusively, the level of SWM was too poor within the town. Along roads, roadway is twice heavily littered whereas in grids, Grid 1 is the cleanest. As recommendation this work should serve as a standard baseline litter survey manual for further research assessment in rural council with single used plastics discouraged with sanctions.
Cite this paper
Manga, V. E. and Esongami, E. N. (2025). Assessment of the Aesthetic Quality in a Rural Community in Cameroon: Using Litter Survey Technique. Open Access Library Journal, 12, e3364. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1113364.
Rapă, M., Carstea, E.M., șăulean, A.A., Popa, C.L., Matei, E., Predescu, A.M., et al. (2024) An Overview of the Current Trends in Marine Plastic Litter Management for a Sustainable Development. Recycling, 9, Article 30. https://doi.org/10.3390/recycling9020030
Agboola, S.O., Inetabor, G.M., Bello, O.O. and Bello, O.S. (2025) Waste Pollution and Management: Current Challenges and Future Perspectives. In: Yatoo, A.M. and Sillanpää, M., Eds., Interdisci-plinary Biotechnological Advances, Springer, 3-20. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-8673-2_1
Nkwocha, E. and Okeoma, I. (2010) Street Littering in Nigerian Towns: Towards Framework for Sustainable Urban Cleanliness. African Research Review, 3, 147-164. https://doi.org/10.4314/afrrev.v3i5.51149
Tanyanyiwa, V.I. (2015) Motivational Factors Influencing Littering in Harare’s Cen-Tral Business District (CBD), Zimbabwe. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 20, 58-65.
Farage, L., Uhl-Haedicke, I. and Hansen, N. (2021) Problem Awareness Does Not Predict Littering: A Field Study on Littering in the Gambia. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 77, Article 101686. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2021.101686
New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (NSWEPA) (2003) Litter Laws in Detail. Department of Environment and Conservation. https://www.epa.nsw.gov.au/Your-environment/Litter/Report-littering/Litter-laws
Al-Khatib, I.A., Salahat, B., Najem, A. and Mayyaleh, E. (2006) Inju-ries Caused by Street Glass among Children in Nablus District in Palestine. Report, Institute of Community and Public Health, Birzeit University, Palestine.
Muñoz-Cadena, C.E., Lina-Manjarrez, P., Estrada-Izquierdo, I. and Ramón-Gallegos, E. (2012) An Approach to Litter Generation and Littering Practices in a Mexico City Neighborhood. Sus-tainability, 4, 1733-1754. https://doi.org/10.3390/su4081733
Florida Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Man-agement (1998) The 1998 Florida Litter Study. Florida Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management.
Loukaitou-Sideris, A., Liggett, R. and Iseki, H. (2002) The Geography of Transit Crime. Journal of Planning Ed-ucation and Research, 22, 135-151. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456x02238443
Krystosik, A., Njoroge, G., Odhi-ambo, L., Forsyth, J.E., Mutuku, F. and LaBeaud, A.D. (2020) Solid Wastes Provide Breeding Sites, Burrows, and Food for Biological Disease Vectors, and Urban Zoonotic Reservoirs: A Call to Action for Solutions-Based Research. Frontiers in Public Health, 7, Article 405. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2019.00405
Diez, S.M., Patil, P.G., Morton, J., Rodriguez, D.J., Vanzella, A., Robin, D.V., Maes, T. and Corbin, C. (2019) Marine Pollution in the Caribbean: Not a Minute to Waste. World Bank Group.
Hastings, A., Bailey, N., Bramley, G., Croudace, R. and Watkins, D. (2009) Street Cleanliness in Deprived and Better-off Neighbourhoods: A Clean Sweep? Joseph Rowntree Foundation. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0042098009344995
McDonnell, W. (2015) Trash Accumulation in Pomona Parks. https://www.pomonaca.gov/government/departments/water-resources-department/storm-water-pollution-prevention-copy
Gholami, H., Mohamadifar, A. and Collins, A.L. (2020) Spatial Mapping of the Provenance of Storm Dust: Applica-tion of Data Mining and Ensemble Modelling. Atmospheric Research, 233, Article 104716. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2019.104716
Seco Pon, J.P. and Becherucci, M.E. (2012) Spatial and Temporal Variations of Urban Litter in Mar Del Plata, the Major Coastal City of Argentina. Waste Management, 32, 343-348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2011.10.012
Chaedruddin, A. (1993) Thesis. Study on Environmental Impact on Automotive Workshop in Ujung Pandang Municipality. PPs UNHAS. https://library.poliupg.ac.id/
Adedokun, D. and Audu, R. (2019) Assessment of Automobile Waste Management Practices in Osun State, Nigeria. International Journal of Engineering and Technology Research, 17, 88.
Linden, O., Sida, I., Gomez, E.D. and Ngoilie, M.A.K. (1997) Common Constraints to Waste Management Programs on the East Asian Seas Region: Top Ten Con-straints. GEF/UNDP/IMO Regional Programme 1997. National Profiles for Brunei, Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Sin-gapore, Thailand and Vietnam. https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/652121/adbi-pb2020-7.pdf
Silva-Iñiguez, L. and Fischer, D.W. (2003) Quantification and Classification of Marine Litter on the Municipal Beach of Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 46, 132-138. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0025-326X(02)00216-3
Oigman-Pszczol, S.S. and Creed, J.C. (2007) Quantification and Classification of Marine Litter on Beaches along Armação dos Búzios, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Journal of Coastal Research, 232, 421-428. https://doi.org/10.2112/1551-5036(2007)23[421:qacoml]2.0.co;2
Kako, S., Muroya, R., Matsuoka, D. and Isobe, A. (2024) Quantification of Litter in Cities Using a Smartphone Application and Citizen Science in Conjunction with Deep Learning-Based Image Processing. Waste Management, 186, 271-279. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2024.06.026
Müller, M., Kolář, V. and Mishra, R.K. (2024) Mechanical and Thermal Degradation-Related Performance of Recycled LDPE from Post-Consumer Waste. Polymers, 16, Article 2863. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym16202863
Lapidos, J. (2007) Will My Plastic Bag Still be Here in 2507? How Scientists Figure out How Long It Takes for Your Trash to Decompose. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/06/do-plastic-bags-really-take-500-years-to-break-down-in-a-landfill.html
Farzadkia, M., Alinejad, N., Ghasemi, A., Rezaei Kalantary, R., Esrafili, A. and Torkashvand, J. (2023) Clean Environment Index: A New Approach for Litter Assessment. Waste Management & Research: The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy, 41, 368-375. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734242x221117093
Alharbi, E., Alsulami, G., Aljohani, S., Alharbi, W. and Al-baradei, S. (2025) Real-Time Detection and Monitoring of Public Littering Behavior Using Deep Learning for a Sustainable Environment. Scientific Reports, 15, Article No. 3000. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-77118-x
Beck, R.W. (2007) Georgia 2006 Visible Litter Survey: A Baseline Survey of Road-Side Litter. Prepared for Keep America Beautiful and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs.
van Oosterhout, L., Dijkstra, H., van Beukering, P., Rehdanz, K., Khedr, S., Brouwer, R., et al. (2022) Public Perceptions of Marine Plastic Litter: A Comparative Study across European Countries and Seas. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8, Article 784829. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.784829
Lavelle, S., Preston-Whyte, F., Lamin, P.A., Sankoh, S.K., Timbo, I. and Maes, T. (2024) Troubled Water: Tracing the Plastic Tide on Sierra Leone’s Beaches. Cambridge Prisms: Plastics, 2, e28. https://doi.org/10.1017/plc.2024.27
