The Determinants of Littering Attitude in Urban Neighbourhoods of Jos

Abstract

In Nigeria, the challenge of effective refuse collection and disposal by the appropriate authorities has made littering behavior an environmental hazard that is detrimental to human health. Given the prevalence of refuse in our communities, this paper using the survey method examined if prevalent attitude and place of residence of people affect littering behaviour. For this paper, a total of 200 participants in Jos metropolis were chosen as respondents. A 32 item questionnaire was administered to the participants after pilot study was conducted with a split half method, having a co relational co-efficient of 0.85.The instrument measures participants littering attitude. Using one- way Analysis of variance(ANOVA), the effect of residence on littering attitude was found to be statistically significant, with the F-value=3.915 at p=0.05. However there are negative littering attitude amongst participants in the 3 regions with the students scoring high with 83.1786 compared to the market place =74.1481 and the neighborhood=78.8762.On the effect of age on littering attitude, the result showed no significance using two-way ANOVA with F-value=1.156 at P=0.05.Means while negative attitude was found to increase with age. It was also found that there is no relationship between education and littering attitude, hence; littering attitude of both highly educated participants and the lower cannot be marked out distinctively different; it thus mean that all were found to have negative attitudes.

Keywords: Litter, attitude, urban, hazard, neighbourhood