Attitude and Perception on The Disposal of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products In Malaysia: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) are common products being used widely and easily accessible to everyone. While it is beneficial for human use, the adverse effects once introduced to the ecosystem are alarming. Studies also show that PPCPs penetrated the surface water bodies. Numerous studies have proven that the occurrences of PPCPs especially in the water bodies have given substantial effects towards animals especially those associated with water. This trace has changed the physical features of the animals and has significantly reduced the amount of the species at the area. Even though the amount of PPCPs being introduced to the environment increasing based on the usage by consumers, a lot of studies have been carried out to remove the PPCPs from the environment using advanced technologies. Considering the feasibility of the technologies to be implemented, most of these novelties are yet to be installed in the water treatment plant due to its installation cost, maintenance fees and shortage of skilled operators to operate the machinery. Although the advanced technologies are highly reliable to remove the PPCPs, it is golden to tackle the issue from the grassroots level which will be the preventive measures rather than treatment actions. Hence, the main objective of this study is to evaluate the level of attitude and practice among the general public towards the PPCPs handling and disposal. This will later be translated into a baseline study so to have a guided database for future outreach programs and policy-making purposes. The method used in this study was a self-administered survey questionnaire which was distributed randomly among 44 respondents. University Malaya students were selected as the sample of this study for its feasibility and diversified characteristics demographically and socio-demographically. The data were then analysed by classifying it and studying the trends of each class to identify the gap of current practices. The study findings demonstrated that although most of the respondents do not have knowledge (77.3%; n=34) on PPCPs, their attitude toward the disposal of PPCPs is highly positive. However, even though the attitude perceived is positive toward the PPCPs waste handling techniques, the actual practice is showing otherwise. The lack of knowledge, proper facilities for disposal and guidelines found to be the main contributing factors to such practices. Finally, this study found that knowledge and attitude per se will not be enough to achieve good practices in handling the disposal of PPCPs to control the penetration of the traces into the environment. Unless there are enough designated facilities for the disposal and proper guidelines on the disposal manners to facilitate for the general public is being introduced, only then the good attitude that was shown can be delivered to prevent more PPCPs being introduced to the environment.