Knowledge and Awareness Implication on E-Waste Management among Nigerian Collegiate

Abstract

Lack of awareness and cautionary information on effective and appropriate management operations associated with e-waste may pose potential threat to human health and the environment. This study assessed the knowledge and awareness implication of e-waste management among undergraduate students of Federal University Wukari, Taraba state. The research design adopted for this study was a cross-sectional study sample survey using questionnaire. The questionnaire was self-developed, pre-tested and validated so as to achieve the purpose of the study. The questionnaire assessed participants’ demography, electrical/electronic equipment ownership and usage, awareness and knowledge of e-waste and e-waste handling and control management approaches. Administration of the questionnaire took place between the months February and March, 2017. The analysed data showed that students’ ownership and usage of e-gadgets were high. Mean value of 2.8482 obtained for e-waste knowledge and awareness analysis implies average level of knowledge and awareness concerning e-waste management among the participants. The implication of e-waste knowledge and awareness on appropriate management practices among the students when subjected to Pearson correlation analysis gave an “r” value of 0.330 which was a positive correlation. The average level of e-waste management awareness among the participants was observed to have translated to average appropriate approaches in practice with mean value of 2.8763. This means that improvement on the level of e-waste management awareness can as well affect the level of e-waste management approaches in practice.

Keywords: e-gadget, e-waste, awareness, practice, environment.