An application of the theory of planned behaviour to study the influencing factors of participation in source separation of food waste Wan Azlina Wan Ab. Karim Ghani, Iffah Farizan Rusli ⇑ , Dayang Radiah Awang Biak, Azni Idris Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia article info Article history: Received 17 January 2012 Accepted 30 September 2012 Available online xxxx Keywords: Theory of planned behaviour Waste separation Food waste Households Significant predictor Sustainable waste management abstract Tremendous increases in biodegradable (food waste) generation significantly impact the local authorities, who are responsible to manage, treat and dispose of this waste. The process of separation of food waste at its generation source is identified as effective means in reducing the amount food waste sent to landfill and can be reused as feedstock to downstream treatment processes namely composting or anaerobic digestion. However, these efforts will only succeed with positive attitudes and highly participations rate by the public towards the scheme. Thus, the social survey (using questionnaires) to analyse public’s view and influencing factors towards participation in source separation of food waste in households based on the theory of planned behaviour technique (TPB) was performed in June and July 2011 among selected staff in Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Selangor. The survey demonstrates that the public has positive intention in participating provided the opportunities, facilities and knowledge on waste separation at source are adequately prepared by the respective local authorities. Furthermore, good moral values and situational factors such as storage convenience and collection times are also encouraged public’s involvement and consequently, the participations rate. The findings from this study may provide useful indicator to the waste management authorities in Malaysia in identifying mechanisms for future devel- opment and implementation of food waste source separation activities in household programmes and communication campaign which advocate the use of these programmes. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The development of Malaysia with total population of approxi- mately 29.2 million currently, along with the economic growth, business activities and consumption rate, will accelerate the daily generation and volume rate of municipal solid waste (MSW). With total MSW waste generation of 19,100 tons in 2005, the amount is expected to be 31,000 tonnes/day with assumptions of 3.6% growth with an average generation rates ranges from 0.5–0.8 kg/ person/day to 1.7 kg/person/day in major cities in 2020 (Latifah et al., 2009; Kathirvale et al., 2003). The Malaysian MSW composi- tion is summarised in Table 1 and generally has characterised sig- nificantly high moisture content which ranging from 52.6% to 66.2% (Hassan et al., 2001) due to its tropical climate with heavy rainfall. Obviously, Malaysian solid waste contains a significantly high amount of food waste, and the amount has been recently re- ported to reach 63.1% in 2008 (Siwar, 2008) and 74% specifically in Kuala Lumpur (capital city of Malaysia) which are mainly being disposed at the landfills. This figure may escalate further after other recyclable materials are recovered from the waste stream which mainly disposed at the landfills. The food waste includes uneaten food and food preparation left- overs from residences, commercial establishments such as restau- rants, institutional sources like school cafeteria and industrial sources like factory lunch-rooms. These organic residues generated by the handling, storage, sales, preparation, cooking and serving of food, are among the many wastes that could be separated and recycled. Unlike other recyclable waste such as paper and glass, food waste separation and minimisation programs has not been extensively implemented in Malaysia due to various constraints which include low awareness among waste generators and low de- mand of products from food waste such as compost (Agamuthu et al., 2007). Since a significant portion of Malaysian’s municipal solid waste comprises of food waste, this matter could cause signif- icant environmental impacts to the country in the long run as most of these food wastes are sent to landfills, in which would degrade in anaerobic conditions to release methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Land-filled food waste can produce methane gas that results in 21 times greater impact on global warming than carbon dioxide. Besides this, the humid nature of food waste is also a main contrib- utor to leachate formation at the landfill site, and their existence in the waste stream may contaminate and complicate the recovery process of other recyclables. To overcome this issue, the separation 0956-053X/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2012.09.019 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +60 603 89466287; fax: +60 603 86567120. E-mail addresses: wanaz@eng.upm.edu.my (W.A.W.A. Karim Ghani), iffahrusli@ yahoo.com (I.F. Rusli), dayang@eng.upm.edu.my (D.R.A. Biak), azni@eng.upm.edu. my (A. Idris). Waste Management xxx (2013) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Waste Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wasman Please cite this article in press as: Karim Ghani, W.A.W.A., et al. An application of the theory of planned behaviour to study the influencing factors of par- ticipation in source separation of food waste. Waste Management (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2012.09.019