Development of Waste Separation Practice Index among the Community of Higher Education Institutions in Malaysia

Abstract

Lately, Malaysia is confronted with a low quality environment and the government needs to provide more efforts in alter strategies to minimize wastes. Universities bear a great responsibility in encouraging waste separation because a higher education institute campus has most of the similar characteristics as a city. This study aims to develop an index of waste separation practice among the UUM community in order to cultivate a green campus culture. With the method of systematic literature review, a conceptual model is developed and five factors that influence waste separation practice involved are identified in this study; attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, moral obligation and situational factor. Data were collected from the 1002 UUM community by using questionnaires and analysis was done by index development. The development of waste separation practice index presented in this study requires three main steps; the first involves identification of factor influence waste separation practice, the second requires weighting factor, which involves application of correlation and Hellwig method, and the final involves building of waste separation practice index using linear combination method. The result of index development displays that students are more dedicated to waste separation practice compared to academic lecturers and administrative staffs.