Towards a sustainable future: a holistic inquiry of waste management behaviors of Singapore households

ABSTRACT

In 2018, Singapore produced a 7.7 million tonnes of waste, which is a significant amount of waste for a small nation-state. In line with the Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) targets 11.6 and 12.5 of the 2030 Agenda, which addresses cities’ waste generation and management impacts, we ask the question of why Singapore households are not more proactively engaged in waste minimization, despite the presence of local waste minimization public campaigns. This study is the first known study to comparatively apply and test three major theories – social psychological, social-structural, and sociocultural theories, to explain household waste management behavior in Singapore. A national survey followed by regression analysis of 303 households was conducted. In our findings, we firstly describe current trends in household waste management behaviors. Secondly, we compared each applied theory’s ability to predict households’: (1) reuse and (2) recycling of a variety of household items; and (3) recycling frequency. We obtained partial evidence supporting the role of future-orientedness and environmental identity on householders’ variety reuse and recycling. Social-structural (age cohort x income, education) and situational variables (the convenience thesis), also predicted various waste minimization behaviors. Finally, householders’ knowledge of what is recyclable affected all forms of waste minimization behaviors. In view of the study’s findings, we propose a need for targeted planning and policy interventions for different segments of the Singapore population, and different short- and longer-term measures to initiate and achieve sustained household waste minimization.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability
• household waste management
• waste minimization
• climate change
• sociocultural theory
• social psychology
• social structural theory

Acknowledgments

This material is based on the research/work supported by the Singapore Ministry of National Development and National Research Foundation under L2NIC Award No.L2NIC-TDF1-2014. Disclaimer: Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Singapore Ministry of National Development and National Research Foundation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. As waste management behaviors constitute multiple dimensions, including waste minimization (reducing consumption, reuse of materials), recycling, and the divestment of waste into the incinerable waste stream, we define sustainable waste management behavior in this study, as the act of diverting waste away from the incinerable waste stream.

2. All items included for factor analysis were found to be suitable for this analysis, having obtained a value of .828 and exceeding the cut-off value of .60 for the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) sampling adequacy test, and Bartlett’s test of sphericity. The data was statistically significant at the .001 alpha level for the latter test, thereby negating the assumption that the correlation matrix is an identity matrix.

3. While there are differences between recycling, donating, and selling household items, we had intentionally not made that differentiation in our question phrasing as our objective was to understand waste minimization behaviors in general. Furthermore, several items/materials listed in the options provided to respondents can only be recycled as they are not conventionally accepted for sale or donation (e.g. tin cans, used paper, plastic bags).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Singapore Ministry of National Development and National Research Foundation Singapore under L2NIC Award No. [L2NIC-TDF1-2014].