Environmental Education and Waste Management Behavior Among Undergraduate Students of the University of Calabar, Nigeria

C V O Eneji ,Usang Nkanu Onnoghen ,Akpeh Edung ,Grace Sylvester Effiong

doi:10.7176/jep/10-24-11

Abstract

This study set out to examine the role Environmental Education can play in influencing Environmental Education student’s waste management behavior among undergraduate’s students of the University of Calabar. Three purposes were pursued, where three research questions and two null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. The research design adopted is the survey inferential research design. 212 respondents were selected as sample from a population of 568 students registered in the department of Environmental Education (both NUC and CES streams). a structured questionnaire with the four point Likert scale modified response options. A total of 212 questionnaires were administered to the respondents in their various classes, before lectures and same were retrieved. Data generated from the field was coded and analyzed using simple percentage and Pearson Product Moment Correlation Analysis at0.05 significance level and at 210 degree of freedom. It was discovered that the waste management behavior of undergraduate students are negative, their waste disposal methods include ‘’throw away mentality’’, burning and dumping into gutter and drainages. The Correlation analyses show a positive significant relationship between Environmental Education and student’s waste management behavior among undergraduate students of the University of Calabar. The study also found that Environmental Education can influence the waste disposal methods adopted by undergraduate students of Environmental Education in the University of Calabar. It was concluded that Environmental Education has the magic wand that can influence positive environmental attitude, behavior and perception towards positive waste management. It was recommended among others that Environmental Education should be introduced into our school curriculums at all level. Keywords: Environmental Education, waste management behavior, waste disposal methods, waste management attitude and waste perception DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-24-11 Publication date: August 31st 2019

Highlights

From prehistoric times, human beings had lived all their lives depending on what the environment can provide for their food, shelter, clothing, medicine and every other thing that can make life comfortable
From this simple percentage analysis, most of the respondents under this study have developed the habit of throwing away waste indiscriminately, while only a paltry 27.8% of the respondents were found to drop their waste into a waste collection bin
The result shows a specific trend in waste management behavior, those at the final stage of their academic pursuit in the department are found to have positive waste management attitude than fresher’s and sophomore, this is observed in the scores of those who believe that waste should be dropped in waste bin and not just thrown away to impede the aesthetic value of the environment

Summary

Introduction

Human beings had lived all their lives depending on what the environment can provide for their food, shelter, clothing, medicine and every other thing that can make life comfortable. Most of human waste generated stems from man’s production and consumption pattern. Man’s production and consumption pattern has created a lot of environmental waste and resources depletion in most part of the world, how these waste and resource depletion can be managed or remedied has become a major source of concern to most environmental scientist and other stakeholders in the environmental business. Waste is most generated in developed countries than in developing countries. These wastes come in form of nuclear waste, industrial waste, domestic waste, commercial and institutional waste and others from mining and exploration sites. Wastes from developed countries have more debilitating and deleterious effects than those from developing countries (Ifegbesan, 2010; Lee and Hae, 2011; Desa, Abd Kadir and Yusooff, 2012)

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion