Purpose: The aim of this paper is to assess the level and relationship between attitude, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms with waste segregation-at-source behavior among households in Putrajaya, Malaysia.
Design/Methodology/Approach: A multi-stage sampling method used to obtain four hundred households in Putrajaya for the purpose of responding to the bilingual questionnaire. The quantitative data collected were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Version 26.0 software. Specifically, the descriptive and Pearson correlation analysis used to describe and summarize the levels and interrelationships of the variables studied with waste segregation-at-source behavior.
Findings: The assessment of the overall factors affecting households with waste segregation-at-source behavior has shown that 92.5 per cent of respondents are considered to have a favorable attitude. Households surveyed are also found to be highly influenced by perceived behavioral control but moderately influenced by the subjective norm. In addition, the results show that attitudes, perceived behavioral control and subjective norm have a positive relationship with waste segregation-at-source behavior.
Implications/Originality/Value: The findings provide insight, in particular, to individual, governmental, educational and non-governmental organizations in Malaysia on important criteria that should be considered in the promotion of environmental policies.
The grade of the environment is gradually declining especially when it comes to the severe problem of solid waste. It has become a challenging burden for many large metropolitan heterogeneous areas in most of the developing countries. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the relationship between households’ attitude, descriptive norm and injunctive norm with intention to practise solid waste segregation-at-source and to ascertain the mediating effect of environmental concern and moderating effect of environmental knowledge between households’ attitude, descriptive norm and injunctive norm with intention to practise solid waste segregation-at-source. The instrument is then validated from four main aspects: face validity, content validity, convergent validity and discriminant validity. After the validation process, the pre-test of this research instrument is conducted among 30 Malaysian households. All the statements have been adjusted after reliability and validity test. The final version of the instrument is set in both closed and open format which consists of eight sections: respondent’s particulars (11 items), general questions on solid waste segregation-at-source (7 items), attitude (14 items), descriptive norm (12 items), injunctive norm (12 items), environmental concern (three subparts and 12 items), environmental knowledge (25 items) and intention to practise solid waste segregation-at-source (8 items). The instrument can further be used to examine other similar research areas such as sustainable consumption, recycling as well as solid waste management.
The growth of public awareness about environmental concerns is triggered since the late 1960s. Today, it becomes an international highlight on the importance of protecting the natural environment by developing the environmental consciousness and awareness to society. Besides that, there is an increasing trend in the daily generation of municipal solid waste due to the human consumption patterns lately. Therefore, the best way to manage this public health issue should be started from the waste segregation-at-source. Ultimately, by realising the scarce knowledge and research within the field, this research can provide a platform to investigate the knowledge gap and its literature by building a good dataset with respect to the intention to practise solid waste segregation-at-source for the Malaysian government bodies, consumers, and non-governmental organisations. So that, they can raise their environmental concern and inculcate their sense of responsibility to protect the cleanliness of the environment among Malaysian households.
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