Waste Separation Behavior Among University
Students
Fayren Chaerunnissa
1*
, Sheyrin Putri
1
, Lailatul Nursakinah
1
, Fikri Arjuna
1
,
Ratna Djuwita
2
1
Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia
2
Department of Social Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia
*Corresponding author, Email: fayren.chaerunnissa71@ui.ac.id
ABSTRACT
This study investigated methods to increase waste separation behavior among undergraduate students
at the University of Indonesia. An experiment was conducted to determine whether participants kept
their waste materials until being able to dispose the waste into the correct waste bin category or if they
littered instead. Participants were divided into two rooms: one with waste bins in the room, and the
other with bins outside of room. Participants created artwork by finger painting and were given wet
tissue and a snack, which became their waste to dispose. The variables analyzed were waste
separation behavior in two conditions: a room with a waste bin and a room without a bin. An
independent sample t test was used to calculate the results from both groups. Most participants
demonstrated waste separation behavior but did not correctly separate their waste into its respective
categories. These results suggest that waste separation is not determined by the presence of waste
bins, but it is influenced by the waste holder’s perceived value of this action.
Keywords: waste facilities, students, perceived value, waste separation behavior.
1. INTRODUCTION
The issue of proper waste management
in Indonesia is not just a government
concern; rather, it is a shared responsibility
that includes all citizens and households,
some of whom may lack awareness of
public waste management. As a result, an
urgent need for community-driven
solutions exists, such as an accessible and
cost-effective infrastructure to solve
Indonesian’s waste management problems.
In line with the nation’s goals, the
University of Indonesia published its
vision to be a “green campus” and issued
the Green Campus Policy in 2010
(“Program pengurangan limbah sampah”,
n.d.) to contribute towards a sustainable
future through education and research, by
being aware of social, economic, and
environmental impacts, and by taking
sustainability into account for all decision-
making.
One of the factors targeted to reach
that goal is to reduce littering behavior by
increasing the presence of bins for waste,
also termed “garbage” herein, that are
separated based on respective waste
categories. The placement of these bins
may increase the possibility of appropriate
waste separation behavior versus disposal
disregarding the waste category.
Waste separation behavior describes
the choice of waste disposal when the
waste is separated based on its type and
categories, such as paper, plastic, and
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 494
Joint proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Intervention and Applied Psychology (ICIAP 2019) and
the 4th Universitas Indonesia Psychology Symposium for Undergraduate Research (UIPSUR 2019)
Copyright © 2020 The Authors. Published by Atlantis Press SARL.
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC 4.0 license -http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. 402