Assessment of the Compliance of Grades 4-12 Students to the Residual Waste Limit

Abstract

In SY 2018-2019, the Environmental Management Committee of St. Mary's College, Quezon City aimed to achieve the maximum residual weight limit per day of 30 kilograms, but this was not regularly achieved with the amount of trash collected daily. Thus, the researchers wanted to know the factors that directly affect this phenomenon, specifically the students' awareness of the residual limit, their knowledge of residuals, among others. The researchers conducted descriptive quantitative research. This non-experimental type of research seeks to describe the current status of an identified variable which is the school's 30-kg Residual Weight Limit by the Environmental Management Committee. The researchers made structured questionnaires in order to answer and satisfy the research questions of the study. Data gathering was conducted from September 16 to 29, 2019 that took place inside the respondents' classrooms in St. Mary's College, Quezon City. Due to the lack of time and availability of the respondents, the researchers also conducted online surveys from September 20 to 29, 2019, for those students who have not answered the surveys in school. The researchers distributed questionnaires to the advisers and presidents of each class from Grades 4 to 12 in order to collect the needed information that will answer the research questions of the study. The results show that students are often aware of the policy of the school and often know how to classify residuals. They usually strictly follow the waste management system inschool and try their best to limit their residuals. The respondents were also tasked to answer a test revealing if they are knowledgeable about residuals or not. Their test scores show that some students have a difficult time distinguishing residuals fromother trashes and mistake non-residuals as residuals. The respondents checked the wastes they have thrown inside the campus since June of SY 2019-2020. The most commonly thrown residual waste is crumpled paper which was checked by 201 respondents out of 288. The least commonly thrown waste inside the campus were specified by the respondents themselves as they have checked the box indicating "others" from the questionnaire.Such findings can be helpful to the Environmental committee of the school for they can target the common residual wastes that are still commonly thrown by the students in the school community. Programs and stronger information dissemination may help lessen these common wastes and improve the frequency of participation to the Residual Waste Limit program.