Knowledge, attitude, and habits on solid waste management of students at Nho Quan C High School

Abstract

Recently, along with climate change, solid waste management has become one of the environmental challenges that many developing countries, including Vietnam, are experiencing especially. Current status of knowledge and attitudes of high school students about solid waste management. For this reason, the research team conducted research on the current state of awareness, attitudes and habits of high school students at Nho Quan C High School, Ninh Binh province regarding solid waste management. In this study, we utilized an online questionnaire to conduct the survey of 800 high school students grading from 10 to 12. The data was then analyzed by the application of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The study results show that 390 graders (accounting for 48.8%) recognized empty plastic bottles and more than one third of the total participants identified food packaging, milk containers, and used napkins as common types of solid waste present within the school campus. The data also illustrates that there is a certain difference among participants in terms of grade levels. Specifically, the higher graders are, the more pro-environmental activities they conduct and involve, for example, while almost all students at grade 10 (95.6%) felt satisfied or very satisfied with the waste treatment methods being implemented in the school campus, only about 86% students at both grades 11 and 12 had the same evaluation. The research suggests that it is important and necessary to continue and enhance the implementation of environmental education and communication programs at high schools on solid waste and related management practices.