Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect Procedia Environmental Sciences 30 (2015) 10 – 14
International Conference on Environmental Forensics 2015 (iENFORCE2015)
Community participation on solid waste segregation through recycling programmes in Putrajaya Nur Khaliesah Abdul Malika, Sabrina Ho Abdullaha*, Latifah Abd Manafb a
Department of Environmental Management, Faculty of Environmental Studies,Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Malaysia b Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 UPM Serdang, Malaysia
Abstract Recycling programmes have been conducted by various stakeholders including Government sector and private sector to reduce waste generation from being disposed into the landfill. The objectives of this study was identifying the correlation between the community participation in recycling programme and community attitude and their knowledge on solid waste segregation. The fully structured questionnaires were filled in by 382 respondents through random sampling. The result shows that there was a weak and positive correlation between community participation in recycling programme with community attitude on solid waste segregation, r = 0.343; and community knowledge on solid waste segregation, r = 0.251. Policy review by Government is highly recommended to identify the factors that can influence more community participation in recycling programmes. © 2015 Published by Elsevier B.V This © 2015The TheAuthors. Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of organizing committee of Environmental Forensics Research Centre, Faculty of Peer-review under responsibility of organizing committee of Environmental Forensics Research Centre, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Environmental Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia. Universiti Putra Malaysia. Keywords: Community participation; attitude; policy review; recycling programmes; solid waste segregation
1. Introduction The solid waste has continuously generated day by day until it reached to the level of concern in terms of amount and composition due to the high consumption from high number of population, rapid urbanization and development and the way of lifestyle such as food intake. The total number of populations in Malaysia is 29, 947.6 million in 2013 and expected to increase up to 36.8 million by 2040 [1]. Malaysia has reached high concentration of organic
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1878-0296 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer-review under responsibility of organizing committee of Environmental Forensics Research Centre, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Universiti Putra Malaysia. doi:10.1016/j.proenv.2015.10.002
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waste [2] with 45% compared to the other developed countries like United States (25%), Japan (26%) and Germany (14%) [3]. Landfill is one of the cheapest and commonly used as final destination to dispose the waste [4]. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) [5] has stated that most of the landfill in Malaysia have reached the maximum capacity and not be able to accommodate the amount of waste generated. According to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) [6], the landfill has negatively affects the environment through methane production to the atmosphere and penetration of leachates into the soil. Malaysia has adopted several methods of waste reduction such as composting, recycling and incineration as well as educational approach which act as a tool to disseminate the environmental awareness among the citizen. Solid waste management is one of the most challenges issues faced by the Local Authorities in Malaysia. It can be supported from the previous study conducted by Burntley [7], where the inefficient organization, financial constraint, complexity and system multi dimensionality are the main challenges faced by the local authority internally in managing the solid waste. Local Authorities are the main agencies in dealing with solid waste management in effective and efficient ways to the residents [8]. The Local Authorities have to emphasize more on waste minimisation on household waste management [9]. Keramitsoglou and Tsagarakis [10] have a different point of view in waste management problem where the residents must have the responsibility rather than the local council waste services in order to achieve recycling targets. Moh and Latifah [11] have pointed out several recommendations that good improvement of capacity building for Local Authorities and stakeholders in terms of development of knowledge, skills and attitude; regulation strategies to impose and mandatory household recycling; allocate the strategic place for recycling bin and educational approach through formal education and school activities can addressed solid waste management issues effectively. The Ministry of Housing and Local Government (MHLG) has moving forward to raise the public awareness on waste reduction and promoting the 3Rs practices by developing three main strategies area including the Enhancement of Awareness on Waste Minimisation (Awareness), Strengthening of Partnership for 3Rs Activities (Partnership), and Enhancement of Institution to Strengthen Government Policies on Waste Minimization. These strategies have been established in order to achieve the set target in line with the vision of a ‘Material Cycle Society’ [12]. However, the community participation on solid waste segregation and recycling programme still at the low level due to lack of awareness and exposure on the advantages of recycling in long term. According to Timlett and Williams [13], the efficiency of a recycling programme is mainly lean on several factors including the local conditions, cultural, situational or demographic factors. Therefore, the purpose of this study is identifying the correlation between the community participation in recycling programme and community attitude and their knowledge on solid waste segregation. 2. Materials and methods Putrajaya has been selected as a study area which was located 25km south of Kuala Lumpur with 4, 931 hectares of the area. According to Department of Statistics [1], there was about 86, 000 number of populations in the study area. The sample size of respondents has been determined by using formula developed by Krejcie and Morgan [14] and gave 382 respondents as a result. The respondents were randomly selected at the whole area of Putrajaya. Structured questionnaires were designed and distributed to the selected respondents in order to collect the information as a primary data for this study. The questionnaire consists of four parts where the first part of questions were related to the sociodemographic profile of the respondents; the second part of questions were explore the respondent’s attitude on solid waste segregation at source; the third part of questions were exploring the respondent’s knowledge on solid waste segregation. These three parts were measured by using close ended questions. The last part was the statements to explore the respondent’s participation in recycling programmes which was measured by using Likert scale. The pilot study has been conducted by selecting 30 respondents among the residents in study area. The questionnaire has been amended and validated by an expert prior to the commencement of actual data collection in order to obtain the authentic and useful information for the study. The reliability of questionnaires for pilot study were analysed by using reliability test in IBM SPSS Statistics software Version 20. The Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient has a good internal consistency and preferable where the value for participation scale was 0.786. 500 questionnaires were distributed within 4 months period from 1st February 2014 until 31st May 2014. The response rate was moderate with 76.4%. After the actual data collection has been conducted, all the data and information
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gathered and analysed by using the same software in order to identify the descriptive analysis on community attitude and their knowledge on solid waste segregation; and Pearson correlation between the community participation on recycling programme and their attitude and knowledge on solid waste segregation. 3. Results and discussion The results and responds of all questions have been analysed, discussed and systematically presented in the Section 3.1. 3.1. Attitude and knowledge on Solid Waste Segregation (SWS) The previous study conducted by Tonglet et al. [15] have studied in depth related with the understanding and gaps of household attitude and their perception toward recycling by using Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and found that the attitude is major influenced to recycling behaviour when the people have adequate knowledge, chances and facilities to recycle. The community attitude on solid waste segregation has been recorded systematically in the Table 1 below. Based on the question ‘Do you segregate the solid waste?’. About (52.9%) of the respondents state “No” and (47.1%) of respondents state “Yes”. Table 1 Community attitude on solid waste segregation (N = 382) Do you segregate the solid waste? Number of respondents Percentage (%) Yes 180 47.1 No 202 52.9
The study found that time constraint, limited of space and bin and the distance from home to recycling facilities centre were the major factors that prevent the community participation to segregate the solid waste. According to Omran et al. [16], the collection centre in residential areas can influence the community to easily reach the facilities and be more participating in recycling programme. The greater distance of recycling facilities centre, the more time needed to reach and recycle the waste. Another response from the respondents was the process of segregating solid waste was burden themselves where they prefer to throw the garbage without segregate it because the process was very fast, easy and less burden. Based on the Table 3, the correlation between the respondents’ awareness on recycling programme and their attitude revealed the value of r = 0.343(segregate solid waste) have a significant correlation between community participation in recycling programme. It shows that attitude on solid waste segregation has encourage the high level of community participation in recycling programme. About (50.8%) of the respondents stated that they have read and gained knowledge on solid waste segregation from various types of information sources; unfortunately, (49.2%) of the respondents have stated “No” which indicate that they do not know about solid waste segregation (Table 2). Most of the respondents have the input on solid waste segregation from the internet (24.6%) as their source of information; followed by the newspaper (9.7%), television (9.2%), books or journal (6.3%), speech (1.0%). Table 2 Knowledge on Solid Waste Segregation (N = 382) Knowledge on Solid Waste Segregation Number of respondents Percentage (%) Yes 194 50.8 No 188 49.2
Internet is one of the major platforms to spread the news and information to the public throughout the world. According to Kate and Natalie [17], internet has the positive ability to enhance the efficacy, knowledge and participation. The previous study found that the public participation can be increased by combining the usage of all media [18]. Another study that has been conducted by Grodzińska-Jurczak et al. [19] stated that the previous method to influence public attitude, behaviour and perception only can reached at limited level through media campaign, leaflet drop, newspaper advertisement and others. In this study, table 3 has showed that value of r = 0.251 (have knowledge) has a significant correlation with the community participation in recycling programme. People will have awareness on recycling performance towards the environment when gaining a lot of knowledge about the consequences of recycling [20]. The willingness to pay for the fee services by monthly and the availability of recycling bin facilities have encourage the high participation from community to comply it [21]. Based on the
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current situation, those can be educational tools to disseminate the knowledge and educate the public but it was very challenging and takes a long period of times to change public attitude and their behaviour. The Department of National Solid Waste Management in Malaysia has provided several guidelines for Local Authorities to comply including the guidelines for source separation of municipal solid wastes. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) act as an existing tools to measure the source separation programmes and activities by providing several monitoring parameters under the main elements which are recycling rates and participation level of source separation. The source separation programme and activities need to be continuously implemented in order to get the high level of public participation which subsequently increases the recycling rate. As mentioned by Guerrero et al. [22], the individual behaviour to segregate the waste can be influenced through awareness campaigns due to their environmental concern and participation to overcome the associated issues. Table 3 Pearson correlation of community participation in recycling programme with attitude and knowledge on SWS Knowledge on SWS Attitude on SWS Have knowledge No knowledge Segregate solid waste Did not segregate solid waste Community participation in 0.251** 0.128 0.343** 0.071 recycling programme ** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2 – tailed)
4. Conclusion Although there were several guidelines on source separation and recycling programmes provided by Department of National Solid Waste Management for Local Authorities, the level of enforcement still did not achieve 22% of recycling rate for national target by 2020. This study has revealed the overall finding results based on the presented analysis result concluded that; (i) the community participation level in recycling programme in the whole area of Putrajaya was significant with the community attitude and their knowledge on solid waste segregation s; (ii) the educational tools like internet, and reading materials can give an input knowledge to the public; and (iii) the distance from home to recycling collection centre, time constraint and limited space and bins were the major factors that prevent community from participating recycling programme. The finding results could be used by the various stakeholders to review and improve policy or implemented recycling programme. The action plan must be highlighted in order to increase the awareness on recycling programme and requires the major participation from the stakeholders in order to achieve sustainability of waste management and subsequently achieve the 22% of recycling rate in Malaysia by 2020. Future research could explore in depth about the factors to influence more community participation in implemented recycling programme such as solid waste segregation and composting. Another future research is exploring the effectiveness of education tools as a turning point to change the public attitude and behaviour in recycling practices. Acknowledgements The authors would like to appreciate the panels and anonymous reviewers for the constructive feedbacks during the preparation of this paper. We also would like to appreciate the Putrajaya residents who have been involved directly and indirectly for their participation, cooperation and contribution throughout the research study conducted. References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
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