Public Awareness and Willingness for Recycling in the Kingdom of Bahrain: Factors Influencing Households’ Participation PDF

Keywords

Awareness, Challenges, Public, Recycling, Willingness to recycle.

Abstract

The Kingdom of Bahrain is facing escalating concerns about the current municipal solid waste (MSW) management. These concerns are aggravated by the increased MSW generated per capita as well as the current recycling rate in Bahrain which does not exceed 1%. The residential areas produce substantial amount of MSW and therefore can be considered as good places to start any recycling program. A total of 300 randomly selected household representatives were selected to answer a questionnaire that was designed to identify their socio-economic status, measure their awareness, their recycling practice, to determine their willingness, and recognize any challenges and obstacles that hinder the recycling practice. The results have revealed that the correspondents have shown high awareness (75%) concerning recycling, however their willingness to participate in recycling was limited to 54.3%. In addition 46.3% of the respondents have never recycled any of the most recyclable materials such as paper, glass, plastic, aluminum and tin cans, food waste, garden waste, batteries, and medicine. Nevertheless, the majority of the respondents (87.3%) were willing to engage in recycling or composting scheme mainly if obstacles such as lack of proper recycling infrastructure and spaces to store different bins in their living spaces were resolved. In view of the results obtained from the current study, several recommendations were suggested including the implementation of effective legislations regarding waste recycling as well as public engagement through awareness campaigns.