Factors Affecting Household Participation In Solid Waste Management Segregation And Recycling In Bangkok, Thailand

The number of population in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, is increasing every year. The capital produces about 9,900 tons of garbage daily or 1.53 kilograms per person which only 13% of waste is recycled per day. This presents a serious challenge and concern of municipal authority in solid waste management. This study examines Bangkok residents’ practices, knowledge of waste management, as well as the level of community mobilization and the level of household participation in solid waste segregation and recycling. One-way Analysis of Varience (ANOVA) was employed to test whether there was statistically significance between the level of household participation among different zones in Bangkok. Additionally, the study also analyzed factors affecting the level of household participation using Multiple Regression Analysis. Data were collected by means of hand-delivered questionnaires. A total of 400 respondents were selected using multi-stage random sampling by dividing Bangkok into three zones. The results showed that about two-thirds of the residents had got high level on knowledge and understanding on solid waste management. However, the results of ANOVA revealed that there was no significant difference between the level of household participation among residents who live in different zones. The level of participation in solid waste segregation and recycling of households in Bangkok was significantly influenced by promoting campaign and training programs continuously from local authorities and age of the residents. Finally, the discussion of the results of the study is presented and further study is also mentioned. INTRODUCTION Bangkok, the capital of Thailand is an enormous administrative area which has more than 1,500 square kilometers. At the 2010 census, Bangkok had overall total population of 8.28 million. Even though, in 2015 only about 6 million people were registered residents (http:/bangkok.go.th/info/). Due to the large number of population, Bangkok like other big cities has faced a high level of environmental pollution and waste management problems. The capital produces about 9,900 tons of garbage daily or 1.53 kilograms per person but only 13% of waste is recycled per day. The remaining 8,700-plus tons are dumped in landfill (http://thaipublica.org/2014/11/bangkok-big-garbageproblem/). The main reasons of disposing of waste into landfill are that it is the simplest, cheapest and most cost-effective method (Barrett and Lawler 1995). Solid waste disposed in a landfill requires a complex process which also leads to hazardous emissions (Omar and Hani 2006). These have become a treat to human health and quality of life problems everywhere. A range of programs and policy instruments are required from the government and stakeholders to manage those waste appropriately in order to improve these problems. Creating an environmentally sustainable community requires an involvement of households in recycling solid waste (Kato et al. 2015). As such, it is necessary to increase the public awareness of waste generation and separation at source which will reduce the volume of waste to deposal. Not only waste reduction can help in reducing the expenditures and investment of government through lower collection, treatment and disposal but also protecting the environment. Nowadays, environmental issues as well as the concern regarding the problems of waste have been increasing in every sector yet only little participation implements it. In order to promote recycling among households, it may require an understanding impact of factors affecting household participation in solid waste recycling. Consequently, the broad objective of this research is to investigate factors affecting household participation in solid waste recycling in Bangkok city, the capital of Thailand. Specifically, the research analyzes the level of community mobilization and knowledge on waste Proceedings 30th European Conference on Modelling and Simulation ©ECMS Thorsten Claus, Frank Herrmann, Michael Manitz, Oliver Rose (Editors) ISBN: 978-0-9932440-2-5 / ISBN: 978-0-9932440-3-2 (CD) management and examine the relationship among the level of community mobilization and knowledge of household participation and demographic characteristics towards the level of household participation in solid waste recycling. The structure of the remainder of this paper is therefore organized as follows. Section 2 describes research methodology employed in this study. Results obtained from the survey are described in Section 3. Finally, conclusion, discussion as well as practical implications for policy makers and waste management planners are then discussed in the final section. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Survey Design and Sampling Method Data for this research were collected by means of handdelivered questionnaires during November and December 2015. Population in this study referred to individuals residing in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand. The number of residents in Bangkok (N) was 5,696,409 people in 2015 (https://th.wikipedia.org/). Due to the population being enormous, a total of 400 sample sizes (n) were selected for this study (Yamane 1973). In order to define respondents who fill in the questionnaire, multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the respondents (Som 1996). At the first stage, stratified random sampling was employed by dividing Bangkok, which comprises of 50 districts, into three strata (h) i.e. inner area (21 districts), middle area (18 districts), and outer area (11 districts) as shown in Figure 1. Next, proportion allocation for each stratum (nh) was assigned using formula. Residents in each stratum were then selected using convenience sampling procedure. To obtain these samples, a questionnaire was distributed to each household by survey teams and finally 400 complete questionnaires were returned and used for further analysis. Figure 1: Bangkok Metropolitan Area Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_districts_of_Bangkok Research Instruments This research used a quantitative method and the instrument for gathering data was questionnaire, which was composed of five parts: Part 1: Inquiries about general information, socioeconomic characteristics of household and waste generation in the residence, as well as waste behavior. Part 2: The respondents were asked whether they have knowledge and understanding about solid waste disposal and recycling. Part 3: The questions regarding the level of community mobilization awareness in solid waste management such as adequate separated recycle bins advertisement and providing information concerns about solid waste management. Each question gauges according to a five-point Likert-type scale (Wolfer 2007). Level 1 means that factor was minimal supported in practices, whereas level 5 means that factor was supported at maximum in practices. Part 4: The fourth part was the main part of the questionnaire including queries about the level of participation in waste recycling practices including 12 variables. Each variable gauges according to a five-point Likert-type scale (Wolfer 2007). Level 1 means that factor has minimal participation in waste recycling practices, whereas level 5 means that factor has maximum participating in waste recycling practices. Part 5: Inquiries about opinions and ideas on how to promote households involving in solid waste recycling and source reduction, establish concerns and awareness in environmental issues and the existing barriers or obstacles for separating waste disposal in practices.