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E-waste Questionnaire among UTHM Community
Data Analysis
Table below shows the background of 450 respondents in this study. It can be seen that the majority of respondents are male, 57.3%. The age range that dominates this study is 19-25 years old (63.3%) and followed by 30% in the range of 26-50 years old. As Malays are the majority race in UTHM, most of the respondents race are Malay, Indian, Chinese and others in descending order. 65.3% of the respondents in this study are UTHM students where 82% are from JKA and the others are from different departments. The proportion of JKA Year 1 (49.2%) and Year 2 (50.8%) are almost equal. Besides that, 22.7% respondents of this study are academic staff with 78% of JKA staff and 53% of the respondents are teaching Environmental Engineering subjects. Remaining 12% of the respondents are management staff in UTHM. A big part of the respondents are electronics device users (98%). This aligns with the study title of E-waste disposal as most of the respondents will have experienced and practiced E-waste disposal.
Table 1 : Respondents Background
Level Of E-waste Knowledge among UTHM Community
Figure 1 :Basic Knowledge of E-waste among Respondents
E-waste Disposal Methods of Respondents
Table 2 : E-waste Disposal Methods of Respondents
Level of E-waste Disposal Awareness among UTHM Community
Table 3 : Classification of Mean Level
The variables of attitude in this study were also divided into three parts of the sustainability domain which are environmental, social and economic. The findings show that the overall level of these variables are also high. This clearly shows that the attitude of the UTHM community towards e-waste disposal is at a good and satisfying level. Since most of the respondents in this study are students and academic staff who are involved with Environmental Engineering, the theory that they have learnt or taught has been reflected in their attitudes towards E-waste disposal.
Level of E-waste Disposal Attitudes
Table 4 : Level of E-waste Disposal Attitudes
This part was divided into three parts of the sustainability domain which are environmental, social and economic, similar to the variables for e-waste disposal attitudes. The findings show that the overall level of e-waste disposal practices are medium, in general. There is a difference between the findings of the level of knowledge and attitudes when compared to e-waste disposal practices. It shows that the community in UTHM is still at the middle level in terms of practicing sustainable e-waste disposal.
Level of E-waste Disposal Practices
Table 5 : Level of E-waste Disposal Practices
Overall, it has been discovered that e-waste disposal and awareness among the UTHM community is getting better and is still in the process of improving. This is in line with the findings of (Tiep et al., 2015) who studied awareness of e-waste management practices in Malacca households and found that the development of awareness of households towards e-waste recycling was still at an early stage. Similarly, the findings by Chibunna et al. (2012), in a study of students at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), showed that awareness of e-waste varied according to the location in which respondents lived: those living in urban areas had a higher level of awareness than respondents living in rural areas due to the limitations in term of information. However, e-waste disposal awareness in the community is very closely related to the three main elements which are knowledge, attitudes and practices. In conclusion, it was found that knowledge and attitudes give effect to e-waste disposal practices even at a medium level. Therefore, in order to develop more practical e-waste disposal practices and thus sustain the environment, public exposure to e-waste issues should be improved through awareness campaigns as well as through the deployment of education agents at an early stage of life, namely in primary and secondary schools (Kalana, 2010)
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