Environment | Study finds residents have ‘positive attitude’ toward recycling

A recent study exploring local residents’ attitudes toward solid waste management has found that a significant majority of Macau locals have a robust awareness of good environmental practices, a positive attitude regarding the recycling waste, and have expressed their satisfaction over the current situation in the MSAR.
The study, entitled “Residents’ attitudes and willingness to pay for solid waste management in Macau,” was written by scholars Qingbin Song, Zhishi Wang and Jinhui Li, and published in Procedia Environmental Sciences. It is intended to serve as a guide for local decision-makers, environmentalists, educators and businessmen in planning for socially sustainable development.
The study found that of the 250 respondents most (92.4 percent) expressed their satisfaction with the current state of solid waste management, while over 95 percent were willing to sort the solid waste (for example, plastic bottles, paper etc.) at home, if the government required them to do so.
The rapid economic development of Macau over the last decade has brought with it exceptional population growth for the city, increased prosperity and tourism and, as a result, placed great pressure on the territory’s waste management systems.
According to the authors of the report, the amount of solid waste generated in the MSAR has increased steadily over the last decade from 232,726 tons in 2001 to 397,738 tons in 2013. This presents new and urgent challenges for waste management entities in Macau.
In conducting the study, the authors noted that there was a pressing need to survey the attitudes of local residents because “the willingness of consumers to participate in recycling activities is essential, for without this, neither government policies nor participation by producers can be effectively put in to practice.”
“Public environmental awareness is one of the most important indicators for displaying national civility” say the authors in their study. “It reflects many aspects of environmental status, such as people’s knowledge, personal consideration and behavior, public capacity, and the local citizens’ attitudes towards a sustainable society as a whole.”
It added that “public participation [itself] is a wholly accepted crucial element for the success of any waste management program including source reduction and recycling.”
Almost all residents surveyed expressed a willingness to contribute their efforts to local environment protection (98.8 percent), while just 1.2 percent said they were not willing and that solid waste recycling was the responsibility of the government.
The study additionally found that 92.4 percent of respondents expressed their satisfaction with the current situation of solid waste management, while only 7.5 percent described themselves as not satisfied. Ten percent said they were very satisfied and about 48.5 percent indicated that they were generally satisfied.
To put this in context, similar surveys in Zhuhai, Ningbo and Qingdao recorded that the satisfaction rate stood at 83.8 percent, 49.9 percent and 72 percent respectively.
However, the results may not be entirely reflective of the current situation in Macau, as they were based on a total of 250 personal interviews administered in 2011. Thus, the high response rate in regards to satisfaction over the current state of solid waste management may not be reflective of opinions held today, five years later, even by the same respondents.
The study additionally concluded that of the four major environmental problems in Macau, solid waste pollution dominated residents’ concerns, with more than half the residents regarding it as more important than water pollution, air pollution and noise pollution.
“Most respondents thought that solid waste pollution in Macau was more serious [than the other three areas], and in future, the government should implement more effective measures to improve the management and treatment of solid waste,” the study concluded.
It also conducted research on the means by which residents acquire information on the environment and good environmental practice. Almost half of the respondents gathered their information through the TV and newspaper (49.7 percent), while 26.5 percent of respondents noted that they acquired some information via environmental activities.
About 87.4 percent of the respondents claimed to have participated in environmental activities. Some of those were organized by the government, for example the recently held and annual International Environmental Co-
operation Forum and Exhibition event, which this year carried the slogan, “Green Economy – Opportunities for Waste Management.”
The study concludes that the government plays an important role in disseminating information about the environment in Macau.
The work was financially supported by the Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan Science and Technology Cooperation Program of China and a special fund of the State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control. Daniel Beitler