*3.6. Perspectives of R&SS Service Users*

All 7 interviewees from the service users' group (including non-recyclers or non-waste sorters) held a positive attitude towards the products and compost made from recycled material. They had a satisfactory level of awareness and were able to explain the advantages and disadvantages of the waste treatment from R&SS. Nevertheless, the disadvantages for waste separation per se relatively outweighed and discouraged them from the practice, as opposed to that of recycling (Table 18). All 7 interviewees confirmed that they had no knowledge of the existing R&SS related efforts or initiatives implemented by Manjung Municipal Council and any local non-governmental organizations.


**Table 18.** Interview responses from the perspective of service users.

#### **4. Discussion**

The population in Manjung is surging, becoming the third most populated district in Perak. The increasing volume of waste generated as a result of throw-away consumerism will eventually exceed the capacity of the waste treatment at the only landfill site in Manjung, whose lifespan is expected to end within 3 to 5 years (data from Manjung Municipal Council). The heavy reliance on landfill for waste disposal has created a comfortable ground for households to throw every type of waste into the garbage bin for weekly municipal waste collection. R&SS therefore remains an unpopular option, and this situation

is not acceptable for a city striving for sustainability within the next decade. This study investigates the gap between households' KAB that has delayed the transition towards sustainable integrated waste management. In addition to the gap, households' behaviour is also influenced by potential parameters that not only radiate from their mental characteristics (internal factors) but are also shaped by the physical environment and on how they deal with waste, from consumption to disposal (external factors). The causation of households' behavioural pattern is to be discussed in this section and should be addressed with relevant improvements in the waste management service to enhance the sustainability of Manjung district.

#### *4.1. Associations between the Households' Level of KAB towards R&SS Practices*

The relationship between knowledge, attitude, and behaviour is direct in theory, where knowledge supports the foundation of information processing, attitude bears psychological and emotional development, and behaviour holds the response and reaction through the entire process of thinking, feeling, and acting [23,46]. However, KAB relate to each other differently and inconsistently in reality, resulting in gaps between familiarity, values, and actions [47].

This gap in KAB also exists in the waste management system in Manjung in regard to whether the local authority or state government should implement Act 672 for mandatory source separation, based on the current condition and quality of the system. In reality, the recyclables, which have been produced and consumed, remain mismatched with the actual processed recyclables. Households also find it difficult to commit to recycling alone (less than 1.0% recycling rate compared to total waste generated per year in Manjung), not to mention source separation, due to additional requirements.

The findings show that households' knowledge (general and specific) is at a moderate level, attitude is at a positive level, and behaviour is at a poor level. These results denote that these three components influence and can be influenced by each other reciprocally, as suggested by various studies in the literature, if not direct. On the other hand, even though KAB has no eligible linear associations statistically, their associations are significant when discussed with multiple sets of conditions, variables, or causal factors. In fact, the negligible linear associations between these three components have proven that their associations are rather complex [46]. Similar results have been recorded in several studies; for instance, ref. [48] agree to the complexity in the study of KAB, especially for the fact that knowledge and attitude for participation in "green activities" do not lead directly to behaviour, regardless of the level. They have discussed that their respondents are familiar with the idea of recycling, yet the practical aspect is absent due to their indifferent attitudes towards the practice.

Finally, many scholars have also studied the associations between demographic profile and the KAB components. In this study, the findings only show household size and housing type as having statistically significant associations with one of the components. In fact, ref. [22] describe the associations of a high satisfactory level of KAB with a mediumsized household where the adults (parents) possess high educational level and secure jobs. Landed property has an influence on households' attitude on the local waste management system rather than knowledge, as suggested by [30]. Other demographic characteristics such as age, gender, civil status, and income level are also major determinants in establishing associations with KAB components [30,48]. Similarly, age, civil status, educational level, and living duration in this study show statistically significant associations with households' participation in source separation practices, which also influences the reciprocal causation of KAB components.

#### *4.2. Enabling Factors of Households' Behaviour on R&SS Practices*

Sections 4.2 and 4.3 discuss the understanding of the households' behavioural pattern (based on the sample at the point of observation, survey, and interview) with the identified barriers and enabling factors that are categorised into internal and external

aspects. These parameters can bridge the gap of the KAB and serve as a basis to formulate recommendations. According to the findings, the internal factors are boiled down to (a) intentions, (b) knowledge, (c) willingness, (d) habit or routine, together with (e) persuasion. Conversely, the external factors identified in this study for the waste management service include (i) accessibility to services (both storage and collection), (ii) tangible incentives (reward) and disincentives (enforcement of law and penalty), and (iii) restrictions on consumption (discouragement of throw-away consumerism).

In terms of enabling factors, the findings (survey and elicited data) reveal that environmental protection is the fundamental motivation for the participation of R&SS practices among the respondents. The strength of intentions propels the recyclers (about 40%) to also participate in source separation, even though they have to deal with inconvenience within the provided waste management system. Households would have to take their own initiative to transport sorted waste to the collection centre. In fact, the municipal council only provides a limited number of recycling containers (a total of 11) and they are dedicated to collect specific and narrow waste category. This has lowered the willingness level, as it was ranked rather low as enabling factors for households to participate in R&SS. To increase this willingness, it may have to couple with other enabling factors such as tangible incentives (reward) and high accessibility to collection services with a widely acceptable waste category, as suggested by [33,39].

Knowledge, in this context, refers to the implications of R&SS practices and knowing the results from their participation in R&SS [35,39]. Interviewees gave positive responses towards the publicity of the outcomes of waste treatment through R&SS, which they claimed would greatly encourage them as they could know how their recycling effort counts. Having this knowledge in mind, this could have strengthened the participation more as "the feeling of satisfaction for anticipating that waste would become a new resource" and "continuous effort" are among the enabling factors that are rated high in the ranking.

Finally, Malaysia has a long recycling implementation history [7] and, consequently, this habit influences the decisions of households [24]. At least 10% of the respondents engaged in R&SS, behaviour that has been partially enabled by recycling habits. Based on the elicited data, songs have been created to teach children how to differentiate the colours of the recycling bin for each type of waste; such methods prompt children to engage in sustainable processes, for instance, paper must go into the blue recycling bin (when you see one).

Generally, this part of the discussion could assist service providers, especially the local authorities, to prioritise their agenda and budget to facilitate the transfer of knowledge among households [35,39].

#### *4.3. Barriers of Households' Behaviour on R&SS Practices*

Willingness to invest in terms of time, money, and effort was lacking among households (reasons ranked amongst the highest at first in recycling; fourth in source separation) as they have been practising a more "convenient" way of consumption and waste management for the past few decades; for example, taking single-use plastics for granted and dumping all wastes into garbage bins [37]. A change in lifestyle is difficult, as claimed by the majority of the interviewees. Dumping, which is a traditional (conventional) practice, is easier to continue as a habit compared to recycling and composting, which require gaining new knowledge and taking more steps to apply [49]; knowledge was rated as the second most selected barrier to participation in source separation.

In fact, there is a disconnection between households' pro-environmental behaviours (acted upon a just cause) and the final outcomes of the R&SS practices; when the interviewees were asked if they knew how recycling could protect the environment, most of them were only able to guess that the recyclables collected are being transformed into secondary material for production. They were intrigued to know the outcomes of the items they recycled; however, this information is not made available.

In fact, the waste management system (current R&SS service) in Manjung operates without a responsive feedback loop to keep users informed and educated. There are limited channels for respondents to improve their waste sorting knowledge, rebut recycling myths, track their contribution in R&SS practices, as well as follow up the aftermath of the segregated waste after it has been collected. The lack of such information discourages continuous recycling efforts among households, especially in communities where the idea that "waste that has been put in a recycle bin does not mean that it has been actually recycled" is a common belief [50,51]. This feedback is essential to prevent "wish-cycling": irresponsibly placing items into a recycle bin and hoping that it would be recycled [52,53]. The discouragement also presents a negative influence towards the impact of one person recycling, as the lack of communal effort has widely become an excuse (ranked as the third most selected barrier in recycling) for most households (not convinced without actual and strong evidence) to refuse in taking up these practices, especially source separation.

Generally, source separation is more complex than recycling, which has caused the percentage of participation to drop to 28% from that of recycling at 62%. It therefore depends on the degree of the discussed internal factors, which can determine how poor a household's behaviour is, in what ways their behaviour is poor, and to what extent this behaviour can be improved.

In terms of external factors, the findings (observed and elicited data) show that all waste management stages in Manjung pose challenges to households' participation in R&SS, especially source separation. As observed, households' waste generation is aggravated by the culture of throw-away consumerism and the convenience of plastic usage in the commercial industry. Waste is generated rapidly not only due to the increasing population (overconsumption), but also the short life cycle of the purchased product (made from nondecomposable material) [3,6]. Many are contaminated by materials such as food residue without proper sorting when discarded [36,52]. Additionally, the district has adopted a waste storage system that does not encourage the action of segregation due to its one-type design, especially waste containers provided at public areas (e.g., wet market). For waste collection, most housing developments in Manjung are landed property, where curb side recycling is claimed to have an overall positive effect for source separation [54], yet this idea is not celebrated. Integrating source separation with recycling seems impossible, as almost all local recycling vendors do not accept biodegradable waste and waste with mixed material (e.g., milk carton). Moreover, recyclables are usually self-transported, and the accepted recyclable categories are limited and generally remain unclear to most of the recyclers. A total of 40.3% of the respondents stated that they will still engage in both R&SS practices even though they have not been well supported by the current waste management system and environment. This could probably be due, in part, to their pro-environmental behaviour. However, at the same time, accessibility to R&SS services is also one of the greatest challenges for them and might result in negative experience when engaging in R&SS in the long term. This is because accessibility to R&SS services has been rated as the second most important barrier to participation in source separation by most of the non-recyclers and non-waste sorters. This barrier has stronger implications for service users in R&SS, discouraging participation.

The interviewees generally feel negatively towards the use of plastic bags, as they understand that the ocean and marine life are impacted by this consumption (based on elicited data). However, when the use of plastic bags grants them great convenience, they still decide to compromise. This is described as selective empathy, in which people in general selectively care about one matter instead of the actual problem [55]. This widens the mismatch between the psychology of households and their behaviour, where mental characteristics are not strong enough to effectively drive a favourable outcome due to the lack of a support system from waste management mechanisms at all stages. This support system can create a convenient environment for households to easily partake in R&SS [33,39]. This convenience is totally different from the convenience associated with throw-away consumerism. To date, a series of programmes have been implemented in

Manjung to encourage R&SS participation at the household level. These include (a) education programmes for pupils from kindergarten, primary, and secondary school. A total of 70 kindergartens have been engaged throughout the year to instil recycling habits in children's upbringing. Recycling and waste separation habits are generally more celebrated among school children; (b) engagement programmes with a group of households to adopt composting (Takakura method) for biodegradable waste treatment. This compost is then used for plantation on the land provided by the local authority (Department of City Planning), named as Taman Communiti, in a planned neighbourhood: Phase 1D Manjung. The community has been taught to produce their own compost after several tutorials; (c) monthly recyclables trade-off programmes for daily necessities at the main lobby of Manjung Municipal Council Office Building every first Saturday of the month; (d) provision of recycling containers (a total of 11) at public areas to collect textiles from households, known as SULAM programmes; (e) a pilot project with business owners at public wet markets with the aim of halting single-use plastics for packaging; and (f) focus group discussions (shifted from pupils to families) in various neighbourhoods.

Through these existing initiatives, the local authority has noticed the difficulty in reaching out or to convince the diverse population within the district to participate in their R&SS implementation. Information is usually disseminated through online platforms official portals and social media (Facebook) page—as well as billboard advertisements at two of the busiest crossroads. Yet, the desirable results have been difficult to achieve. The lack of effective engagement and communication strategies and long-term trust building with the community are among the major issues faced by the local authority [56,57]. The interviewee from the local authority admitted that they were hoping that NGO(s) would come to them with a R&SS implementation proposal so that they could provide these NGO(s) with resources.

In addition, the State's commitment to sustainable waste management has been nonchalant and, as a result, the local authority's initiatives have only been sufficient enough to fulfil the requirements of standard urban management rather than a mission. Additionally, being a suburban municipality, the economy, technology, and even society are still unprepared for the development of sustainable waste management [47]; the communities in Manjung have yet to emerge as a major driving force behind the waste minimisation movement.
