A statistical analysis of recycling attitudes and behaviours towards municipal solid waste management: A case study of the University of Johannesburg, South Africa

Abstract

Rapid generation of municipal solid waste (MSW) has become an issue of global concern due to continuous population growth and despite this, there has been a dearth of study on behavioural attitude towards municipal solid waste in South Africa. This paper aims to evaluate the attitudes and behaviour of staff and students at the University of Johannesburg towards waste management. A structured questionnaire was formulated and administered to a random sample of students and staff at the University of Johannesburg campuses via online Google form survey and paper-based survey. A total number of respondents who took part in the survey were 2591 where the online Google form generated 956 responses and the paper-based gave 1635 responses. Perception, opinions, and the likelihood of the public changing their attitudes toward municipal solid waste generation were investigated via a Logistic regression model. Exploratory data analysis, and Chi-squared tests for dependency were used to analyse data at α_0.05 and the development of a Logistic regression model was carried out. The qualitative data associated to the collection status of bins and a student’s study mode of the respondents showed a significant dependent relationship, and their willingness to support recycling where the p-values were less than 0.05. The statistical analysis of the quantitative data produced enough statistical evidence of relationships between the data, and in addition, the variables obtained from the survey and the analysis allowed for the development of a logistic model prediction for the assessment of behavioural attitudinal patterns. The logistic model presented explains the probability of “yes” and median score of attribute responses towards willingness to support recycling. In terms of the reliability of the data collected, this was confirmed using Cronbach’s alpha with a major significant α level between 0.72 and 0.93. This initiates the assessment of behavioural attitude may be widened to long-term research and extended to neighbouring nations in upcoming study. Overall, the data analysis showed there is a significant and positive conclusion to the willingness to support recycling by the respondents.