Intention to practice waste separation at source among households in Putrajaya, Malaysia

In Malaysia, the public concerns on the effects of not separating waste for recycling, the sense of responsibility in managing waste properly as well as their mentality towards cleanliness is still very low. The widespread and open dumping in Malaysia had caused the landfill site worsening while source separation for recycling is at a minimal. Moreover, the generation of municipal solid waste has increased more than 91% over the past decade and the biggest contributor to waste generation was city dwellers of the urban country which constituted more than 65% of the total population. The households are the initial sources of solid waste and became the country's main generator of municipal solid waste (MSW). It was found that promoting recycling and waste separation at the household level as a good method to reduce the amount of waste generated, costs of waste collection and raised public health. Therefore, households are encouraged to engage in waste separation at source. Thus, it is important to understand what drives household intend to practice waste separation at source before any program or campaign on waste separation are implemented. Waste separation at source is been introduced by stages starting on 1ˢᵗ September 2015 by government in eight states including Putrajaya to enhance recycling activities of waste material generated. Hence, this study was undertaken to identify variables which are significantly influence household intention to engage in waste separation at source in selected areas in Putrajaya. The modified Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) is applied in the study. Three hundred and twelve (312) respondents with different housing strata were selected using systematic stratified random sampling. The results revealed that 67% of the respondents had aware of waste separation at source program and 100% of them intend to do waste separation at home. The study revealed four factors, namely attitude, subjective norms, knowledge and perceived behavioural redicted the intention among households at practicing waste separation. These factors contributed 70.06% in determining households with intention to practice waste separation. The ordinal analysis indicated the relationship of intention for the implementation of new waste separation with the socio-economic variables such as gender, marital status, family size, education level, type of houses and income also influenced the household’s intention to practice waste separation at source. Subsequently, the attitude, subjective norm and knowledge were positively related to the households’ intention to engage in waste separation, whereas perceived behavioural control was insignificant. Based on the parallel estimate, the observed significance was 0.817 (p>0.05), indicating consistency in the observed data and the Pseudo R-Square of 42.10% indicated that all predictors were able to explain the households’ intention. The waste separation issue is widely discussed globally, and this study can contribute to the current literature focusing in selected areas with different housing strata. Thus, understanding the attitudes and factors that shape the intention to separate waste at source can be instrumental for policy development to educate and create awareness among the household’s behaviours to participate in waste separation at source.

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