Influencing Factors on the Community Participation in Food Waste Separation
Nurul Akma Kamarudin1*, Jeniwaty Mohd Jody1
1 Faculty of Administrative Science and Policy Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia
*Corresponding Author: [email protected] Accepted: 15 August 2022 | Published: 1 September 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.55057/ajbs.2022.4.3.2
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Abstract: Solid waste management is one of the environmental issues which contributes to negative externalities such as health hazards, pollution, and global warming. In Malaysia, it is reported that 45% of municipal solid waste is from food waste and household makes up about 65% of food waste. In solid waste management, community participation plays an essential role in ensuring the effective and the success of policies and programs implemented by the government. Therefore, the community is responsible for participating directly in the waste hierarchy, the most preferred action in the waste diversion, which is to separate the amount of food waste at home. In this study, the objectives are to identify the factors influencing the intention of a community to participate in food waste separation in solid waste management in Rantau, Negeri Sembilan. A sample of 377respondents from Rantau households are given a survey regarding the study. The findings of the research indicated that there are significant and positive relationships between all independent variables and dependent variable. Besides, attitude is recognized to be the most significant factor that influenced the intention of the community to participate in food waste separation. Also, the study has shown that there is a high level of the intention of the community to perform food waste separation at home. In conclusion, the research has successfully achieved all the objectives and thus requires the government, local municipal council and non-governmental organizations (NGO) to generate more ideas to encourage the community to practice food waste separation at home based on the identified variables in the study.
Keywords: food waste, food waste separation and solid waste management
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1. Introduction
In Malaysia, it is reported that 45% of municipal solid waste is from food waste and household makes up about 65% of food waste. United Nation Environmental Programme (UNEP) divided solid waste into three classes, municipal solid waste, industrial solid waste and agricultural waste and residues. Solid waste management is an administration or management which supervises the handling of waste materials which comprises of isolation, storage allocation, transportation, transfer processing and disposal of solid waste (United Nation, 1997). Even though Malaysia is not a leading country in ASEAN that has a high level of waste generation but it takes 12.84 million tons annually of waste generation. In solid waste management, community participation plays an essential role in ensuring the effective and the success of policies and programs implemented by the government. Therefore, the community is
responsible for participating directly in the waste hierarchy, the most preferred action in the waste diversion, which is to separate the amount of food waste at home.
In year 2017, United Nation Environmental Programme (UNEP) report they estimate the solid waste will rise to 3.40 billion tons in 2050. In that report started Indonesia is a leading country that has a high level of waste generation, 64 million tons annually, followed by Thailand 26.77 million tons, Vietnam 22.02 million tons, Philippine 14.46 million annually and Malaysia 12.84 million tons annually (UNEP, 2017). It also highlighted that the percentage of solid waste contributing to solid waste generation in each country is 60% in Indonesia, 64% in Thailand, 55% in Vietnam, 52% in the Philippines and 45% in Malaysia.
Starting 1 September 2015 Ministry of Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government had launched a national campaign on #ASINGKAN to educate the community to separate their solid waste is deemed likely to show any reduction of waste generated in Negeri Sembilan in 2019. However, Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Aminuddin Harun states that households in the state produced about 405 tonnes of food waste each day (Zulkifli, 2019). According to Mat Don and Samsudin (2013) a comprehensive policy is vital to support community participation by enhancing their knowledge and the skills of the community on the food waste separation as part of solid waste management.
In year 2016, Bernama reported that SWCorp has started to make separate the waste at home as compulsory, and those who fail to comply with the regulation would be penalised. However, the former Menteri Besar of Negeri Sembilan, Datuk Seri Utama Mohammad bin Haji Hassan had argued in the parliament on the implementation of the food waste separation policy as compulsory should not be implemented as the community awareness are still low (Bernama, 2015).
Due to above statement the SWCorp in Negeri Sembilan has provided information to each community regarding on the schedule of the waste collection according to its type. They also provide a waste bin for each house to the community to separate their waste by placing solid waste in the waste bin and recycled waste outside the bin. However, the number of waste generation is kept on increasing every year and the result is still behind SWCorp expectation and achievement as. Therefore, this study is concentrating on influencing factors on the community participation in the food waste food waste separation in Rantau.
2. Literature Review
Community Participation
According to Subash (2012) stated that community participation as a group of people who involved in an activity and organize themselves in their neighbourhood or surrounding to improve their quality of life. In addition, Cornwall (2008) stated that most of the community fear that their ideas and opinions are not being taken into consideration as they think that public has no power to interrupt in the administration decision and that will be the failure of the community participation in certain activities. With no involvement from the community, it will lead to no influence from the public especially in decision making. The involvement by the community in management activities is important because the community will influence the management in their future (Cornwall, 2008).
In a study by Oakley (1991) in the Project with People: The Practice of Participation in Rural
the development for the rural area. In study by Dennill, King, and Lock (2000) itemised three important features of the community participation which are The participants are active; the participation is based on the observation of peoples’ right, and responsibilities and the participant involve exercising power over decisions that affect their lives.
Waste Separation
Waste management can be referred to the process of collection, transportation, recycling or disposal of solid waste (Mugambwa 2009). The UN (1997) also referring the term solid waste management as an administration that arranging the wastes by providing isolation, storage allocation, transportation, transfer processing and disposal of solid waste. Meanwhile, McDougall, White, Franke & Hindle (2001) defined solid waste as any unusable and unwanted product in a solid state that is discarded by the community.
In a study conducted by Kirunda (2009), he categorised waste management into countries, rural and urban areas and residential and industrial producers and all the waste is organised in different way. According to Salleh, Idris & Mohd Yunus, (2008) the numbers of solid waste is increasing rapidly especially in an urban area. In this issue if it is not appropriately manage the solid waste, it could lead to unsanitary conditions that can contribte to pollution to the earth (Nathanson, 2018).
The Malaysian government has outsourced solid waste management through SWM Environment Sdn Bhd in South region, E-Idaman Sdn Bhd in North region and also Alam Flora Sdn Bhd in central and eastern region. In the same time these company encourage the public to help them in reducing the waste through giving each house a rubbish bin to make it easier for solid waste worker to collect the waste (Sinar Harian Online, 2013).
Table 1: Summary of analysis Summary of analysis
Objectives Analysis Result
Relationship between attitude with the intention of a community to participate in food waste separation.
Pearson Correlation
r = 0.550**
p = 0.000 Relationship between subjective norms with the intention of a
community to participate in food waste separation.
Pearson Correlation
r = 0.389**
p = 0.000
Relationship between perceived behavioural control with the intention of a community to participate in food waste separation.
Pearson Correlation
r = 0.521**
p = 0.000
Table 1 shows the three supporting factors influencing on the Community Participation in Food Waste Separation including the attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control.
All these factors established under the Theory of Planned Behaviour begins as a Theory of Reasoned action in 1980 and it used to determine factors that lead to the behaviour of a person based on their action through their intention (LaMorte, 2018). The first supporting factor was attitude with the intention of a community to participate in food waste separation with the result of the Pearson Correlation of r = 0.550 and p < 0.05.The second supporting factor was subjective norms with the intention of a community to participate in food waste separation with the result r = 0.389 with p < 0.05 and the last supporting factor was perceived behavioural control with the intention of a community to participate in food waste separation with the result of the Pearson Correlation, r = 0.521 and p < 0.05. It shows that all these supporting factors has a positive intention of a community to participate in food waste separation.
4. Methodology
A convenience sampling technique using a cross-sectional survey questionnaire was used to collect data and data were analysed using SPSS. This study was conducted in Rantau one of the districts in Negeri Sembilan with 20,804 population. A total of 377 respondent were take part in this survey. Pearson Correlation test was used to determine the relationships between variables, whereas multiple regression analysis was used to determine the factor influence the community participation in food waste separation. Standard deviation and mean were used to determine the level of the intention of the community participation in food waste separation in Rantau.
5. Conclusion
The result of the study demonstrated that attitude was the most influence factor to the community to participate in food waste separation and the level of the intention of the community participation in food waste separation is very high with the means score of 4.2724 and it is above the midpoint of 2.5 score. In order to improve the community participation in food waste management the collaboration between the government and community, private sector, and NGOs have to be conducted. Five strategies to achieve the goal of community participation in Rantau educate the community to compost the food scrap, monitoring and mentoring mechanism from local municipal council, provide two separate waste bins for each house, enforce a strict law in solid waste separation and reschedule the solid waste collection days.
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