Household separation behaviour of residual waste: the moderating effect of environmental commitment / Siti Aisyah Asrul

In the drive towards realising the 2021-2030 Shared Prosperity Vision, environmentally friendly in sustainable development has become one of the components for making the vision to be successful. Making Malaysia as a developed country, the government is resolute to ensure that the practice of cleanliness will become part of the Malaysia culture or way of life. To date, Malaysians are not disciplined enough to practice the habits of not littering. In 1980s, Malaysian government enforced the adoption of 3R - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle to minimise the number of waste disposal sent to landfills. Unfortunately, the participation is still low. Therefore, in 2015, separation at source programme is implemented with more enhanced program where households need to separate their waste at source according to the type of waste. This is to ensure that less solid waste will be sent to landfills and prevent disposal of recyclable materials. This study examines four factors that affect source separation behaviour. 456 selfadministered questionnaires were acquired from the households by using convenience sampling. The results indicate that national culture and environmental literacy has positive impact on attitude towards behaviour but intention to adopt source separation behaviour is not supported by the attitude and social influence. Environmental commitment as proposed moderator also shows negative impact on intention and household separation behaviour. The results of this study are deemed to help government to understand the current situation of the program and come up with relevant programs and intense rewards for the successful of the separation at source.