People’s attitude, with regards to perceived inconvenience of recycling, also affect their waste separation behaviour.
A local survey conducted in 2018 by the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) and NEA surveyed 5000 households and found that 4 out of 10 do not recycle regularly. These households reported that the main reason for not recycling was the perception that recycling was inconvenient and secondary to their daily routine.
One possible explanation on negative attitude towards recycling could be the inadequacy of the initial NRP program. The initial recycling plans of the NRP might have given a bad impression as a result of the inconvenience mentioned. This negative attitude of Singaporeans might persist in the older generations who have experienced the failures of the initial NRP program.
An overseas study provided evidence that attitude influences people’s recycling behaviour. A study on American undergraduates found that attitude, in terms of perceived inconvenience, had a strong influence on their recycling behaviour. A negative attitude towards recycling an individual would decrease their recycling behaviour. In other words, the more recycling is perceived as inconvenient, the less likely they were to recycle. Another finding of the study indicated that the inconvenience of recycling influenced people’s beliefs in the importance of recycling. This means that the more inconvenient they perceived recycling, the less important they believed it to be.
This could be related to the Theory of Planned Behaviour, where an individual’s attitude is one of the strong predictors of behaviour. Specifically, the attitude towards can influence their intention and recycling behaviour. Hence, this shows that governmental strategies to improve recycling can target attitudinal change in order to in order to achieve behavioural change.
