Socio-Economic and Environmental Impacts of Poor Paper Management at Higher Education Institutions in Ethiopia

Abstract

Currently there are 34 universities in Ethiopia which enrolled hundreds of thousands of students which generated large volume of waste paper a year. Therefore, this article has an objective of assessing the socio-economic and environmental impacts of poor paper management at higher education institutions of Ethiopia with a particular focus on Hawassa University. The findings of the study revealed that a large volume of paper is consumed for different academic purposes. Due to the poor management of paper consumption as well as poor waste management practices, the university faced socio-economic and environmental problems. By 2015/16 academic year a total of 94,025 reams of paper were used at Hawassa University. This has created a large volume of waste paper at offices, which resulted in unpleasant working environment. Incineration is the only means of waste paper disposal, which created environmental pollution and health risks to the university community. Moreover, the university also lost a significant amount of money which would have been gained from selling to paper recycling industries.