Effects of Romanian student's awareness and needs regarding plastic waste management

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of needs and awareness of university students on their environmental behaviour. With this purpose the data was collected from 537 students from the University of Cluj Napoca, Romania, from the engineering and management specializations respectively via an online questionnaire. The questionnaire was structured in four parts including 29 questions in total. The first part is meant to identify the students’ characteristics (gender, field of study, participation and attendance in field-specific activities, and if he/she is an environmentalist). The second part is meant to determine the students’ awareness regarding plastic and plastic pollution. Another part is meant to determine the needs of students and the manner in which they learn and gather information. The last part allows the determination of the students’ behavior in their daily life (use of bio plastic bags, environmental protection). The results show that students have enough information about biodegradable plastic but they act depending on the situation, respecting or not the rules for selecting plastic waste. The female student’ pay a lot of attention to selecting and choosing bioplastic products. The male students are directly involved in cleaning nature. Management students pay attention to small details as compared to engineering students who choose bioplastic even though the costs are higher. Related with their thoughts the factors effecting the opinion of either they are environmentalist or not are also examined. Being aware of the plastic waste show significant effect from the sides of awareness and behaviour. Finally, the structural model show that strongest connection is between students’ awareness about the plastic problem and the need to adapt to new regulations. Using the model universities can promote the importance of bioplastic through study programs or by involving students in volunteering activities, through their active involvement in environmental protection, and selective waste recycling.