Willingness to pay for the treatment of environmental hazards : a case study of Peshawar

Safe and human friendly environment is one of the most important issues in world today. This paper has addressed one of such important issue, the treatment of environmental hazard in form of solid waste in Peshawar District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The study aimed at finding out the public Willingness to Pay (WTP) for the treatment of environmental hazard in the form of solid waste. The study is based on primary data collected from 225 households living in 25 union councils of urban Peshawar. Binomial Logit Model has been used for obtaining the estimation results. Interestingly, 61 respondents, out of total 225, were willing to pay Rs.200 per month for the removal of this environmental hazard. Similarly, 22 respondents were ready to pay Rs.300 and 17 respondents were willing to pay more than 300 for safe disposal of the solid waste. The study finds income of household, family disease history, education and size of households as major factors which affect the household’s decision regarding WTP. Majority of the respondents (71%) were willing that the service may be provided by the private sector.