CURRENT PATTERNS OF WASTE SEGREGATION BEHAVIOUR AT SOURCE AMONG HOUSEHOLDS IN PUTRAJAYA

Abstract

Efficient solid waste management has become one of the most daunting national challenges nowadays (Otitoju & Seng, 2014), typically in the cities of developing countries (Wang & Wang, 2013), including Malaysia. Fast population growth (Begum, Siwar, Pereira, & Jaafar, 2007), rapid changing lifestyle (Sakawi, 2010), great urbanization (Manaf, Samah, & Zukki, 2009) along with aggressive economic development (Iwan Budhiarta, Siwar, & Hassan Basri, 2012), and changes in consumption rate (Abas & Wee, 2014) have accelerated the daily generation and volume rate of municipal solid wastes in Malaysia.
According to statistics released by Ministry of Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government (MHLG) in 2011, 23,289 tonnes of garbage were produced in Malaysia every day. Selangor was ahead of other states with generation of 4055 tonnes of garbage every day. It was then followed by Kuala Lumpur (3734 tonnes/day), Johor (3102 tonnes/day), Perak (2696 tonnes/day), and Kedah (2483 tonnes/day) (Abdullah, Rahman, & Azis, 2010). On average, each Malaysian produces 0.8 kg of waste every day. This amount is getting larger for those who live in urban areas because they are estimated to produce 1.5 kg of waste every day (Fatimah, Osmi, Mokhtar, Romali, & Che, 2013).