PONE-D-20-33283

Managing urban solid waste in Ghana: Perspective and experiences of municipal waste company managers and supervisors in an urban municipality

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Lissah,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Bing Xue, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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2. Please include additional information regarding the survey or questionnaire used in the study and ensure that you have provided sufficient details that others could replicate the analyses. For instance, if you developed a questionnaire as part of this study and it is not under a copyright more restrictive than CC-BY, please include a copy, in both the original language and English, as Supporting Information.

3. Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript:

"We acknowledge the Ghana Education Trust (GETFUND) for supporting the first author in pursuing his PhD program."

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Abstract

The study needs to state the number of possible waste management agencies (sample frame) from which the sample was taken for readers to ascertain if the sample size of two agencies are representative enough to warrant a conclusive results. Clarity should be given on how it is different from existing studies on perspectives of waste management from managers/supervisors to avoid repetition of existing knowledge.

Introduction

The reason provided by authors on why only waste managers/supervisors were sampled for this study is very weak and needs to be strengthened to fit purpose. Otherwise views from waste generators in the communities could be also be obtained to corroborate the information provided by the managers/supervisors.

Materials and Methods

Authors should justify why only two companies were selected for the study, and by provide the calculations they used to obtain 35 respondents whose views provide a conclusive argument for the results. Even though limitations have been provided by the authors as possible bias been introduced, it still does not provide enough backing to justify that the views of 35 respondents may not be enough to provide basis for bringing about multidimensional and multilevel interventions that the authors suggest. The results therefore remain inconclusive and skewed towards the two companies which may be infinitesimal in the business of waste management in the study area, unless proper evidence based justification is provided.

Also, the pre-testing of questionnaires - line 160 - could/should have been done outside the two chosen companies to avoid introduction of errors/biases in ideas for the main questionnaires. Preferably outside the jurisdiction of the study area to make it more reliable.

Results/Discussion

Findings from the study present no new knowledge of what is already known as the challenges of waste management, especially in developing countries. Results should be tailored towards unearthing exciting novel approach on representing the perspectives on waste management that could trigger response from policy makers other than the routine knowledge that yields same ineffective results.

General comments

1. Authors should be consistent in the use of percent and % - refer to lines 58 and 66

2. The study is relevant in the field of waste management. However, findings do not differ so much from existing knowledge and makes it just a repetition without bringing out any exciting information in the field.

Reviewer #2: The study was very well conducted, as demonstrated in the very detailed methodology, which outline the steps taking in arriving at the said results.

The study is pure qualitative and the author outlined in detail the process of sampling, data collection, transcription and analysis, all of which was performed systematically and through a very rigorous process.

The author has also indicated that the data is available upon reasonable request from the first author.

The document is very readable and very well written. No spelling errors identified. And no grammatical errors also observed.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Managing urban solid waste in Ghana: Perspectives and experiences of municipal waste company managers and supervisors in an urban municipality

PONE-D-20-33283R1

Dear Dr. Lissah,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Bing Xue, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors have sufficiently addressed arising issues from the previous review and have satisfactorily provided evidence in the revised format to back their conclusion.

Where few sample size were used, authors have justified the reasons which are sound to merit scientific publication.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No