According to statistic released by Jabatan Pengurusan Sisa Pepejal Negara Kementerian Kesejahteraan Bandar, Perumahan Dan Kerajaan Tempatan, households' recycling rate is only 9.7%.
Therefore, this article is going to talk about the factors influencing the this behavior. As you may expect, this article is going to be wordy.
1. Lack of awareness on the current state of the environment
Most people nowadays may be aware of the crisis happening in the world but not the severity of it. Not understanding the severity of the crisis is ignorance on their part which plays a huge role in recycling behavior.
For example, households who are aware of the severity of the issue is more likely to manage their waste correctly and recycle more than other households. Meanwhile, households who aren't aware of it are going to continue disposing their waste improperly, which may be burning the waste.
2. Government support
In Malaysia, much efforts are made into campaigns to encourage recycling, but there just isn't enough of a drive to get things going for the common household to start recycling.
There are a few ways that the government can take to encourage people to recycle their household waste. For example, in countries such as China and Finland, there are machines that looks like vending machine that accepts glass bottles or plastic bottles and gives out a small reward to encourage people to not simply throw away their glass bottles or plastic bottles. The reward can be credits that add to your train pass or small discounts when you buy stuffs in any convenient stores.
3. Education
Most Malaysian household lack knowledge on recycling, which results in only knowing the the definition of recycling and not knowing the causes, effects, recycling methods in this current era. Education on this topic should start as early as possible so that the concept of managing their household waste correctly will come naturally to the younger generation. This can be done in various ways, such as including this topic in Moral subject in schools, advertising it on televisions and social media. This will surely garner attention and increase their knowledge, which, in turn may boost the rate of recycling.
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