Abstract:
. Introduction
Millions of tons of municipal solid waste are produced in Sri Lanka, which
has developed into a life-threatening societal issue. The United Nations'
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development seeks to prevent, reduce,
recycle, and reuse waste, but Sri Lanka still needs to achieve this goal.
Waste separation is one of the critical components of recyclables
management. Hence, this research aims to investigate the influence of
external and internal motivations on attitudes toward waste separation
among households in the Colombo Municipal Council Area.
2. Research Methodology
The study used the deductive approach to examine the extended Theory of
Planned Behavior (TPB) and Attitude-Behavior-Context Theory (ABC),
which leads to a waste separation attitude. Cross-sectional data were
collected by administering the structured questionnaire to 384 households
in the Colombo Municipal Council Area, employing the purposive sampling
technique. Multiple regression was used for the analysis with the technical
assistance of SPSS 25 software.
3. Findings and Discussion
The findings revealed that external motivations such as policy regulation,
facilitating conditions, subjective norms, and internal motivations,
including moral norms, self-efficacy, and awareness of consequences,
significantly and positively impact attitudes toward waste separation
among households in the Colombo Municipal Council Area. In contrast,
incentives do not substantially affect attitudes toward waste separation.
4. Conclusion and Implications
The findings implied that policymakers should make an integrative effort
to promote waste separation since the accumulation of internal and
external motivations impacts attitude. Moreover, the findings support the
government in developing policy regulations and recommend awareness
campaigns at the school level to induce household waste separation.
Besides, this study contributes to the existing literature about attitudes
toward waste separation among households from a developing country
perspective.
