Study on Recycling Issue Among University Students

1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study Firstly, recycling is not a new concept to us, people has been doing it for thousands of years. Recycling is different from ‘re-use’ in the sense that re-use means using old products repeatedly. Recycling is the process of producing a new product from a recyclable material. Undeniably, recycling has always been a matter of helping the environment and for economic reasons.

According to http://www.nural.com.my, in Malaysia, we produce 19,000 tons of garbage every day, and a greater part of that ends up in landfills. Our country currently has 230 landfill sights and 80% of them will reach capacity in the two years later, and with land for landfill sites being at a premium there is shortly going to be a big crisis right on our doorsteps. Since this problem will bring threat to our environment, we have to try to lessen the amount of trash produced by some effective ways.

The Malaysian Perspective (2007) stated that approximately 26 million people in the country produce 26 million kilos of solid waste every single day if an average per person generation of solid waste is 1kg per day. As the waste management issue is getting more important in our country, it seems that university students are lack of awareness on recycling. If we ask a random individual on campus on what they think about recycling, 90% of them will tell you “It is good for the environment.” However, they don’t understand the importance of recycling. Even though the concept of recycling and reusing is preached in the campus, students are still not interested in any recycling campaign.

This study focuses on the problem of lack of awareness on recycling among students from several public and private universities. We examine why students do not recycle and explore the students’ perceptions on recycling, seeking to identify the effects of not recycling. We also attempt to recommend methods on how to encourage students to recycle.

1.2 Statement of the Problem By referring to the website, http://www.frost.com, the most general method of waste disposal in Malaysia is landfill. More than 180 landfill sites are placed in the Peninsula alone with 50 percent being open dumping grounds. In fact, this problem is getting more serious and must be settled effectively as soon as possible. If the university students still lack of awareness on the importance of recycling, it is going to affect their general perception on recycling.

Given the situation, it is the time for us to take serious effort in studying the problem of lack of awareness on recycling among students. If we do not look serious into this problem, campus will be polluted and certain significant environmental effects may have occurred. The causes of this problem should be investigated, thus the ways to solve the problem of lack of awareness on recycling could be figured out.

1.3 Purpose of the Study There are large amount of waste being generated, waste production are increasing year by year and landfills would be at full capacity one day. There are many recycling campaigns being promoted last few years, however, there was not been enough movement among the public included undergraduate students as well. Nowadays, university students are not concerned about any recycling program. The aim of this study is to explore the level of recycling practice and perception among university students. Apart from that, the study critically discusses the reasons that may cause student not practicing recycling habit. The research conducted also aims to investigate the effective ways of doing recycling programs in order to increasing the number of participation among universities students.

1.4 Objectives of the Study The purpose of the study is supported by the subsequence objective as the following:
i. To explore the students’ perception level on recycling. ii. To determine the reasons or factors that cause student not practicing recycle habit. iii. To identify the effects of not recycling. iv. To recommend methods that may serve as solutions to encourage and promote recycling.

1.5 Research Question
Objective 1
To explore the students’ perception level on recycling.
Research Question 1
What is the students’ perception on recycling?

Objective 2
To determine the reasons or factors that cause student not practicing recycle habit.
Research Question 2
Why students do not recycle?

Objective 3
To identify the effects of not recycling.
Research Question 3
What are the effects of not recycling?

Objective 4
To recommend methods that may serve as solution to encourage and promote recycling. Research Question 4
What are the methods to encourage students to recycle?

1.6 Significance of the Study
This study is mainly focused on the awareness on recycling among university students and how is this going to affect their general perception on recycling. As we mentioned before in our background of the study (1.1), nowadays, university students are lack of awareness on recycling and this is one of the critical issues that are faced by all the universities in our country. As the future leader of our country, the future graduates must be aware on the global issue and contribute towards it. Therefore, study regarding to recycling has been carried out to overcome this problem. The findings of this study are important to help both public and private universities to find out the reasons why students do not recycle and to explore the ways to encourage students to take the initiative to recycle. Consequently, university students’ awareness on recycling can be increased.

1.7 Scope of the Study The purpose of this study is to examine the issue of awareness on recycling among universities students. The study was confined to getting the responses of the students which are in several public and private universities students between 18 to 25 years old. 100 set of questionnaires were distributed randomly for public and private university students. The data collected by questionnaires were distributed from February 21 to March 3 this year by using SPSS software to analysis the data. Data for the research also were collected via interview and observation.