A Study of Farmers’ Awareness and Practice in Solid Waste Management: A Case Study of Ban Nong Mai Fao Model Community, Khao Khlung Sub-district, Banpong District, Ratchaburi Province

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to study 1) general data of farmer at Ban Nong Mai Fao community, Khao Khlung sub-district, Ban Pong district, Ratchaburi province, 2) awareness of farmer on solid waste management, and 3) action of farmer on 3R waste management practices (reduce-reuse-recycle). One hundred and thirty people were selected by simple sampling method to be sample group. The data was collected by interviewing and analyzed by descriptive statistics. The results revealed that most of farmer are female (60.77%), the average age are 52.45 years, and graduated level is elementary school (71.54%). All of interviewees acknowledged information on waste management mostly from community leader (93.85%) which 93.08% of information was about waste sorting. The farmers have been trained and informed about waste management (92.31%). Most of them always follow the waste management process (94.62%). The awareness of community on waste management was classified as three aspects. The average awareness score was 4.49 (highest level). The aspects with highest score were the awareness on participation, consciousness building, and knowledge promotion (average score is 4.60), followed by the awareness of 3R practices (average score is 4.46) and the awareness of problems and impacts of waste practices (average score is 4.42). In addition, the most action of farmer on 3R waste management practices was waste reduction (90.77%) followed by recycling (87.69%) and reusing (81.54%). This research recommended the promotion and development of waste products to be well-known and continuing the waste management activities to drive the community to be the low carbon city. Keywords: Solid waste management, 3R practices, Awareness