Analyzing the Factors affecting Rural Waste Management Areas in Shirin Dareh district, Quchan County

Planning the proper management of waste and considering its harmful effects on the environment in each country is one of the important principles to provide long - term benefits and move on the path of sustainable development. In this regard, waste management is considered as one of the major axes of development in rural areas. Due to the importance of the problem, the present descriptive-analytical study was conducted to identify the factors affecting rural waste management in Shirin Dareh village, Quchan city. The statistical population of this study includes the heads of rural households of Shirin Darreh village (3560) in which 347 were selected applying Cochran formula. The method of Attributive-Survey was applied to collect data. A documentary method is used to examine the record and explain the problem. Furthermore, a survey method was used to collect the data by observation, interview and completion of the questionnaire among the residents. The data were also analyzed using SPSS and LISREL software packages. Exploratory factor analysis was used in order to identify the factors associated with the structure “factor affecting of Rural Waste Management in Shirin Dareh Village”. Besides, confirmatory factor analysis was used to investigate the goodness of fit index of the research model. The results of exploratory factor analysis indicated that ten factors of ultimate disposal management, education and information, cultural, health, knowledge and awareness, inter-sectoral, financial, executive organization, planned and social programs, explains approximately 67.51% of total variance of waste management factors affecting rural areas of Shirin Darreh. The findings of confirmatory factor analysis also showed that those ten mentioned factors, to a large extent, measure the independent and discrete dimensions of "waste management factors affecting" within the study area.

Today, protecting the environment and nature (both urban and rural areas) has become one of    the most important human concerns. Since the beginning of human life, waste production has been an integral part of his life, in various sectors of home, agriculture, health, etc. Population growth, economic growth, increasing urbanization, and essentially a new way of life for humans have changed the pattern of consumption and increased production waste, resulting in numerous environmental problems. Environmental pollution and consequently the risk of rural health and health risks require a proper model of waste management based on existing conditions. Therefore, the management of rural waste is one of the most important issues which requires to be considered. The current study aims to identify the status of rural waste management in Quchan city investigating the factors which affect rural waste management by rural households in order to obtain a realistic picture of rural waste management situation in Quchan city.

Descriptive-analytical method and quantitative method has been applied in current study since it aims to identify of factors affecting of rural waste management. Attributive-Survey is applied to collect data through questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. 40 items were used to assess the factors affecting of rural waste management in the study area. Respondents were asked to rate each item on their scale in a five-point Likert scale for their village. A panel of experts confirmed the content validity of the questionnaire. Pilot study was conducted in the same region with a population of 30 questionnaires and the reliability was 0.832 using Cronbach's alpha formula. The statistical population of the study includes the villages of Shirin Dareh village in Quchan city. According to the census of 1395, there were 15435 people in 4718 households scattered in 30 rural areas. According to the frequency of the villages under study, 10 villages were selected to distribute and complete the questionnaire, which includes 3560 households; thus, using Cochran formula, 347 households were selected as sample size. The study area is divided into two groups (lowland and mountainous) in terms of location and topography, for this purpose, the abundance of villages in these two groups was determined by classified probability sampling. Applying simple sampling, four lowland villages and six mountainous villages were randomly selected. A quota sampling method was used to select the sample size within each village showing that each village was categorized according to a number of households residing.

The findings from ranking the items of rural waste management factors revealed that the first factor of rural waste management in the study area is to separate the origin and not mix wet, dry and special (hazardous) household waste. Exploratory factor analysis was used to categorize "rural waste management problems within the study area" and determine the amount of variance explained by each of the variables in the form of categorized factors.
Based on the results of the research, the significance of Bartlett test at 99% level and the KMO value indicated correlation and the fact that it was proper for the intended variables to perform factor analysis. Eigenvalue criterion was applied to extract the factors considering the factors greater than one. As the findings revealed, generally, ten extracted factors could explain approximately 67.51% of the total variance of the structure (factors affecting of Rural Waste Management in Shirin Dare). In the meantime, the first factor, "Disposal Management", with a specific value of 4.39, has the most variance (19.88%). In order to investigate the structural validity of the questionnaire and the fitting of the measurement pattern related to the structure of "factors affecting of Rural Waste Management in Shirin Dareh Village of Quchan", the collected data were analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis using LISREL software. The obtained fit indices indicate the appropriate fit of the studied model with the observed data. According to the fitted model of rural waste management factors affecting of Shirin Dareh district of Quchan, standardized factor loadings show that the measuring instruments have appropriate structural validity. The results of the significant coefficients indicated that the obtained t values were greater than 1.96 for all the studied variables and the relationships between these variables with the relevant factors have been significant. Accordingly, it can be stated that the factors of final disposal management, education and information, cultural, health, knowledge and awareness, inter-sectoral coordination, financial, executive, lack of planned and social program, to a large extent, measure the independent dimensions of the structure of "factors affecting of Waste management in rural areas of Shirin Dare". These ten factors prioritized from first to tenth, respectively, in explaining factors affecting rural waste management. 

Rural Waste management is an important issue due to the changes in lifestyles, environmental pollutions which endangers the villager health. Achieving an appropriate model of waste management requires identifying and evaluating the existing conditions in the region and analyzing the factors affecting waste management.