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Chapter 8
Plastic Waste Problem and Education
for Plastic Waste Management
Cheuk-Fai Chow, Wing-Mui Winnie So, Tsz-Yan Cheung
and Siu-Kit Dennis Yeung
Abstract Economic development and people’s changing patterns of consumption
and production have led to a drastic increase in plastic wastes all over the world.
Plastic waste disposal harms the environment and poses threat to human health.
Hence, there is great desire to reduce the plastic wastes. To reduce plastic wastes,
education is of utmost importance as education can change people’s knowledge,
attitude, and behaviors toward plastic waste management. This study examines the
effectiveness of three teaching strategies (direct teaching, hands-on teaching, and
simulation game-based teaching) on change in knowledge, attitude, and behavior in
students toward plastic waste management. The results are discussed in depth in this
chapter.
Keywords Plastic waste education Plastic waste management Direct teaching
Hands-on teaching Simulation game-based teaching
8.1 Plastic Waste Problem
The rapid urbanization and economic growth in different countries have led to a
drastic increase in plastic production and consumption around the globe. Owing to
the low recycling value of plastic and the lack of technological support, the
recovery rate of plastic waste remains very low. Most of it is washed into the ocean,
C.-F. Chow (&)W.-M.W. So
Department of Science and Environmental Studies, The Education University
of Hong Kong, 10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, Hong Kong
e-mail: cfchow@eduhk.hk
C.-F. Chow W.-M.W. So (&)T.-Y. Cheung S.-K.D. Yeung
Centre for Education in Environmental Sustainability (CEES),
The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
e-mail: wiso@eduhk.hk
T.-Y. Cheung
School of Nursing, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
©Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2017
S.C. Kong et al. (eds.), Emerging Practices in Scholarship of Learning
and Teaching in a Digital Era, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-3344-5_8
125
disposed of in landfills, or burned in incinerators. These enormous amounts of
plastic waste bring disastrous consequences, such as pollution, food chain con-
tamination, biodiversity breakdowns, energy waste, and economic loss. These
plastic waste problems and adverse effects are especially serious and omnipresent in
renowned countries/megacites such as Japan (PWMI, 2014), Taiwan (Walther,
2015), the UK (GHK, 2006; Howarth, 2013), and Hong Kong (Environmental
Protection Department, 2013), where economic activities are flourishing and the
plastic consumption level is high. Plastic waste not only causes air pollution (Li,
Lee, Mi, & Su, 1995), land pollution (Barnes, Galgani, Thompson, & Barlaz, 2009;
Steelys Drinkware, 2013), and harms human health (Crinnion, 2010; Elliott et al.,
1996; Maffini, Rubin, Sonnenschein, & Soto, 2006; Yamamoto & Yasuhara, 1999),
but it also causes water pollution (Howarth, 2013; Laist, 1987; Perkins, 2014;
Schwartz, 2014; Zielinski, 2014) and contaminates the food chain (Rochman et al.,
2014; Swan, 2008; Thompson, Moore, Saal, & Swan, 2009), endangers biodiver-
sity (Derraik, 2002; Grant & Ryder, 2009; Gregory, 2009; McNamee, 2008), and
causes enormous energy waste (Cho, 2012; European Commission, 2013; Hong
Kong Cleanup, 2012; StudyMode, 2015; Themelis & Mussche, 2014), as sum-
marized in Table 8.1.
Table 8.1 Current plastic waste problem in mega-cities
Japan Taiwan/Taipei UK Hong Kong
Status quo of
plastic
wastes
Around 9.3 million
tons discharged per
year
Near 7200 kg plastic
waste collected on
18 beaches
5 million
tons of
plastic
consumed
per year
Around 730,000
tons of plastic waste
discharged per year
Major source
of plastic
wastes
Domestic/packaging Domestic/restaurants Packaging Municipal/shopping
bags
Plastic waste
management
strategies
Incineration / / Landfilling
Crisis of plastic wastes
(a) Health Respiratory
infection
Food chain
contamination
//
(b)
Environment
Air pollution Water pollution / Land pollution
(c)
Biodiversity
/ / Endanger
biodiversity
/
(d) Energy / / / Energy waste and
economic loss
126 C.-F. Chow et al.
8.2 Education for Plastic Waste Management
In order to reduce plastic waste, the popularity of plastic waste management among
the public has to be enhanced by changing people’s knowledge, attitudes, and
behaviors toward plastic waste management. There are four areas of plastic waste
management, which are (a) the 4Rs—reduce, reuse, recycle, and regeneration,
(b) the two strategies—landfilling and incineration, (c) the four steps of recycling
procedures—cleaning, separation, sorting, and compression, and (d) the knowledge
of the life cycle of plastics.
8.2.1 Education for Plastic Waste Management in Japan,
Taiwan, The UK, and Hong Kong
To cope with the serious plastic waste problem, education in plastic waste man-
agement is becoming increasingly prevalent all around the world, and in general
there are four main different educational approaches, namely community-based
education, government-based education, business-based education, and
school-based education. Japan, Taiwan, the UK, and Hong Kong are, respectively,
the representatives of these four approaches.
8.2.1.1 Japan
Characteristics
•Specific containers
The Japanese community is highly engaged in recycling and highly encourages
Japanese citizens to do sorting at source before recycling by providing specific
containers for PET bottles, PS foam containers, or PP bottle caps separately instead
of mixing them with other plastics (Yoda, 1999).
•Publication and Broadcasting
The community promotes and provides guidance for recycling by the regular
publication of various guidebooks and magazines, such as the door-to-door dis-
tributed Guidebook for Sorting Recyclables and Waste, regular articles relating to
resource recycling posted in the newsletter, and “Minacle”3R Information
Magazine distributed in newspapers. In addition to publication, the Japanese
community also broadcasts a special CATV program called “3R Forum”twice a
year, which is sponsored by the 3R Promotion Committee (Hasegawa, 2014).
8 Plastic Waste Problem and Education for Plastic Waste Management 127
•Activities
The community and condominium residents together have formed some orga-
nizations, which voluntarily and periodically collect and gather resources mainly
from household sources and then sell them to recyclers. In addition, the community
also periodically launches some facility tours to incineration plants, recycling
facilities, and other facilities (Hasegawa, 2014). Also, in the past 20 years, the
Japan Environmental Action Network (JEAN) has been organizing beach cleanups
and surveys every year (Lytle, 2015).
•Family education
In Japan, recycling also goes from the community into family. The municipal
governments will set up rules and time schedules for the collection of recyclables,
and most Japanese families follow those rules and schedules strictly by keeping the
color-coded calendars with the rules and schedule on it in their kitchens to remind
themselves (Hays, 2012). Those sorting rules include requiring households to
separate plastic waste from other kitchen waste and to separate plastic wrappers,
labels, and packages from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles (McCurry,
2011).
Pros
The publication and the facility tours may enhance Japanese citizens’knowledge
of recycling and plastic waste management. The specific containers, the voluntary
activities, and the family education are likely to enhance Japanese citizens’
behavior regarding plastic recycling.
8.2.1.2 Taiwan
Characteristics
•“Four-in-One”program
In 1997, the Taiwanese government established the “4-in-1 Recycling Program”
in the hopes of stimulating the citizens to engage more in recycling. The program
connected the collaboration of four different stakeholders, including community
residents, recyclers and collectors, local governments, and the local recycling fund,
to collect regulated recyclable waste, which includes 13 categories and 33 items,
such as metal containers, glass containers, plastic containers, and waste electrical
appliances. The waste plastic containers are further divided into 8 categories, which
encourages sorting before recycling.
•Legislation
The Taiwanese government has enacted the Waste Disposal Act, which restricts
the use and offering of plastic shopping bags and disposable plastic (including
styrofoam) tableware to customers for free (Legislative Council Secretariat, 2005).
128 C.-F. Chow et al.
Pros
It is reported that the “Four-in-One”program enhanced Taiwanese residents’
behavior regarding plastic recycling and plastic waste reduction (Huang, 2013). The
Environmental Protection Agency Taiwan pointed out that the introduction of
restrictive legislation has successfully enhanced Taipei residents’environmental
protection awareness and changed their behaviors by using fewer plastic shopping
bags and less disposable plastic tableware (Legislative Council Secretariat, 2005).
8.2.1.3 The UK
Characteristics
•WasteCare
WasteCare is a leading plastic waste management and recycling company that
has provided plastic waste collection, recycling, and recovery solutions for over
20,000 organizations throughout the UK for over 30 years (WasteCare, 2015).
•LUXUS
Luxus is another plastic management and recycling company, which collects
plastic waste from businesses in the UK and then recycles it or returns it to the
moulding or extrusion company for remanufacture into new plastic products (Luxus
Ltd., 2014).
•Plastic recycling schemes
There are different plastic recycling schemes in the UK to promote and facilitate
plastic recycling, such as “Recovinyl,”which provides financial incentives to
support the collection of PVC waste; “Recofloor,”which mainly collects and
recycles vinyl flooring and diverts it from landfill; and the “Vinyl Plus programme,”
aimed at enhancing the recycling rates of PVC and developing innovative and
advanced recycling technologies (British Plastics Federation, 2015).
Pros
The business-based education for plastic waste management in the UK aims at
enhancing businesses’awareness and behavior regarding plastic recycling and
plastic waste management by using those services.
8.2.1.4 Hong Kong
Characteristics
•Teacher’s guidebook
The government has published a teacher’s guidebook called “Reduce Your
Waste and Recycle Your Plastics,”which provides the four steps of recycling
8 Plastic Waste Problem and Education for Plastic Waste Management 129
procedures and the rationale behind the steps (Environmental Protection
Department, 2011).
•The “Reduce Your Waste and Recycle Your Plastics Campaign”
The Environmental Campaign Committee 2012
1
organized a campaign called
the “Reduce Your Waste and Recycle Your Plastics Campaign”in Hong Kong
schools in 2012, in which the participating schools encouraged their students to
bring their plastic bottles to school after cleaning and removing the caps and labels
from the bottles and put them into the recycling bin at school (Environmental
Protection Department, 2015).
Pros
The teacher’s guidebook and the campaign aimed to “cultivate and sustain pupils’
behavioral change on waste reduction and recycling”and to provide them with
knowledge of waste management (Environmental Protection Department, 2015).
8.2.2 Importance of Plastic Waste Education
Research studies have revealed that it is possible for education to change knowl-
edge, attitudes, and behaviors. The studies of Mobley, Vagias, and DeWard (2009)
and Olofsson and Öhman (2006) (as cited in Manning, 2010) support that “the level
of formal education people have received seems to correlate directly with the
amount of environmental knowledge people have and the formation of positive
attitudes.”In addition, Scott and Willits (1994) (as cited in Manning, 2010)“also
found that the more highly educated one is, the more likely one is to engage in
environmentally responsible behaviors.”The current environmental education for
plastic waste management adopted by Japan, Taiwan, the UK, and Hong Kong is
still not perfect. There is still much room for improvement in order to change all of
the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding plastic waste management, which
depends on the effectiveness of the educational strategies.
8.2.2.1 Change in Knowledge
Some academics have defined education as a “potent weapon to help develop new
knowledge, skills, and values for achieving a healthier environment and a higher
quality of life”(Nagra, 2010; UNCED, 1992). Indeed, education is a process of
teaching and learning, in which the learners acquire and know new facts, infor-
mation, and values.
1
The Environmental Protection Department (EPD), the Environmental Campaign Committee
(ECC), the Education Bureau (EDB) and the Yan Oi Tong EcoPark Plastic Resources Recycling
Centre (YOT PRRC) formed the Environmental Campaign Committee 2012.
130 C.-F. Chow et al.
8.2.2.2 Change in Attitudes
Another environmental education’s objective is to change people’s attitudes by
“helping social groups and individuals acquire a set of values and feelings of
concern for the environment and motivation for actively participating in environ-
mental improvement and protection,”defined by the 1977 Tbilisi Intergovernmental
Conference on Environmental Education (Hungerford & Volk, 1980).
8.2.2.3 Change in Behavior
The 1977 Tbilisi Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education also
defined that education can change behavior by “providing social groups and indi-
viduals with an opportunity to be actively involved at all levels in working toward
resolution of environmental problems and/or issues”(Hungerford & Volk, 1980).
8.2.2.4 Educational Strategies
To achieve the above changes, teaching strategies are critical for the learning
outcomes. Traditional lectures have been reported to be less effective to affect
behaviors in environmental-related topics due to the lack of interactive learning and
thinking opportunities to students (Duerden & Witt, 2010). On the other hand,
experiential learning is found to be more effective in empowering and engaging
students to take part in environmental learning and actions (Sipos, Battisti, &
Grimm 2008). There are no standard pedagogies developed specifically for teaching
plastic waste management in schools. However, So and her colleagues (2014)
suggested that inquiry learning approach (such as gaming activities or experimental
investigation) could enhance students’knowledge, but the limited course time
(70 min) was difficult to induce intended behavioral changes for plastic waste
recycling education. More investigations should be studied for educational strate-
gies in plastic waste recycling.
8.3 The Centre for Education in Environmental
Sustainability’s (CEES) Aim/Vision of Plastic
Waste Education
CEES has been established since January 2013. The Centre’s vision is to further
develop effective environmental educational strategies and sustainability studies in
Hong Kong through research and knowledge transfer networks with local, Chinese,
8 Plastic Waste Problem and Education for Plastic Waste Management 131
and overseas universities. The mission of the centre is “to improve the under-
standing of environmentally related matters via education in environmental sus-
tainability and to stimulate remedial actions through research and public
education,”as highlighted in the centre’s slogan “Care for our Environment, and
Educate our Students and Community”(CEES, EdUHK, 2015) (Table 8.2).
8.4 Plastic Waste Education Adopted by CEES
CEES has launched the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) education project with three
different teaching strategies, i.e., direct teaching, hands-on teaching, and simulation
game-based teaching strategies, attempting to enrich local primary school pupils’
knowledge of environmental sustainability as well as pro-environmental attitudes
and behaviors of plastic waste recycling.
Research question: How can educational strategies be used to enhance students’
learning outcomes in terms of knowledge, attitude, and behavior?
8.4.1 Methodology
There were 61 pupils from seven local primary schools aged from 8 to 12, from
grades 4 to 6, participating in this education project. They were divided into three
Table 8.2 Expected change in knowledge, attitude, and behavior toward plastic waste
management induced by different education programs
Education programs in Japan, Taiwan, the UK, and Hong
Kong (not exhaustive)
Expected
change in
Knowledge •Publication and broadcasting (Japan)
•Teacher’s guidebook (Hong Kong)
•The “Reduce Your Waste and Recycle Your Plastics
Campaign”(Hong Kong)
Attitude •Legislation (Taiwan)
•Plastic management and recycling companies (UK)
Behavior •Specific containers (Japan)
•Voluntary activities (Japan)
•Family education (Japan)
•“Four-in-one”program (Taiwan)
•Legislation (Taiwan)
•Plastic management and recycling companies (UK)
•Teacher’s guidebook (Hong Kong)
•The “Reduce Your Waste and Recycle Your Plastics
Campaign”(Hong Kong)
132 C.-F. Chow et al.
teaching groups to learn about plastic waste problems and plastic waste manage-
ment in Hong Kong for 9 h (one-and-a-half-day course). Before and after the
program, the pupils were given a pre- and post-test, respectively, to test their
changes in knowledge, attitudes, and intended behaviors regarding recycling and
plastic waste management. Quantitative data were collected with the prior consent
received from pupils. All the statistical data were analyzed by the software SPSS
ver.21 (IBM Corp., 2012).
8.4.1.1 Direct Teaching Strategy
The direct teaching strategy is about “teachers instructing students directly and
assuming a highly structured, active, and dominant role in which teacher talk is
relied upon to ensure that students interpret the work in the intended way and
achieve the desired outcome”(Goodman, 1986). In the direct teaching sessions, the
teacher presented plastic waste problems and management knowledge to pupils
directly, mainly by using PowerPoint slides.
8.4.1.2 Hands-on Teaching Strategy
Hands-on teaching is a kind of inquiry teaching strategy, which “refers to the
activities of students in which they develop knowledge and understanding of sci-
entific ideas, as well as an understanding of how scientists study the natural world”
(National Research Council, 1996). In the hands-on teaching sessions, the teacher
provided guidance for pupils to learn actively by observation, experiments, and
interaction with the environment.
8.4.1.3 Simulation Game-Based Teaching Strategy
Simulation games “represent dynamic models of real situations (a reconstruction of
a situation or reality that is itself a social construction)”(Kriz, 2003). Within a
game-like context, pupils can experience in-person in the simulation of certain
existing systems (i.e., instructive content). In the simulation game-based sessions,
the teacher held a face-to-face simulation game called “plastic city,”in which the
pupils were involved in a role play and acted as citizens of the city. By “living in
the plastic city,”they can experience and understand more on the interconnections
between their daily lives and environmental problems.
8 Plastic Waste Problem and Education for Plastic Waste Management 133
8.4.2 Results
8.4.2.1 Knowledge of the 3Rs and Plastic Waste Problems
and Management
As shown in Table 8.3, all of the three groups’post-test scores for the knowledge of
the 3Rs and plastic waste problems and management had a significant increase after
the pupils went through either one of the teaching strategies. In other words, all of
the three teaching strategies can enhance pupils’knowledge of the 3Rs and plastic
waste problems and management. There was no significance found for the pre-test
scores among the three groups for different teaching strategies on pupils’knowl-
edge (F = 1.938; Sig. = 0.153), proving that the pupils from the three groups had a
similar knowledge background before they underwent the teaching strategy.
As shown in Table 8.4, pupils who participated in the simulation game attained
the most significant improvement in their knowledge of the 3Rs and plastic waste
problems and management, when compared with those who were from the direct
teaching group and the hands-on teaching group (Table 8.5).
In the test, the questions were divided into four different categories: plastic and
waste, recycle, reuse, and reduce. For example, they included the knowledge of
landfills in Hong Kong, plastic waste problems and management, and government
policy. The post-test results revealed that the pupils from the simulation
game-based teaching group achieved significantly higher scores than the other two
groups in the category of plastic and waste, whereas there were no significant
differences in the scores of the other categories among the three teaching groups.
8.4.2.2 Ecological Worldview Attitude
The results listed in Tables 8.6 and 8.7 indicate that there were no significant
differences in the pupils’ecological worldview attitudes before and after the pro-
gram for each teaching strategy. Nevertheless, the pupils from the hands-on
Table 8.3 Pre- and post-test scores for the knowledge of 3Rs and plastic waste problems and
management
Teaching Strategies N Pre-mean Post-mean t-value Significance
p-value (2-tailed)
Direct 21 5.42 ±1.56 7.90 ±2.49 3.901 0.001**
Hands-on 19 5.36 ±1.70 8.32 ±2.71 5.321 0.000***
Simulation game-based 21 6.24 ±1.04 10.48 ±2.32 9.722 0.000***
**p < 0.005; ***p < 0.001
The full score is 15
134 C.-F. Chow et al.
teaching group had a slight improvement in their ecological worldview attitudes
after the program and had slightly better performance in this part of the post-test
than the other two groups (Table 8.8).
Table 8.4 Comparison of the difference in the knowledge scores of the teaching groups
Teaching strategies Mean dif. (post–pre) SD F Sig.
Direct 2.28 0.67 3.493 0.038
Hands-on 2.87 2.29
Simulation game-based 4.24* 2.00
One-way ANOVA: *p < 0.05
Table 8.5 Pre- and Post-test mean score of the classified questions in different categories and
teaching groups
Questions
category
Full
score
Post-test mean score ±SD
Direct Hands-on Simulation
game-based
Plastic and waste 7 3.79 ±1.27a 3.60 ±1.30b 5.05 ±0.97a, b*
Recycle 2 0.63 ±0.60 1.13 ±0.83 0.904 ±0.77
Reuse 3 1.68 ±1.00 1.60 ±0.83 2.10 ±0.94
Reduce 3 1.74 ±0.73 1.53 ±0.83 2.00 ±0.77
One-way ANOVA
*Sig. = 0.004 for a and 0.002 for b
Table 8.6 Pre- and Post-test mean scores of the ecological worldview attitudes of the different
teaching groups
Teaching strategies N Pre-mean Post-mean t-value Significance
p-value
(2-tailed)
Direct 7 2.11 ±0.34 1.91 ±0.64 −0.85 0.429
Hands-on 9 2.211 ±0.45 2.22 ±0.41 0.098 0.924
Simulation
game-based
19 2.04 ±0.57 1.89 ±0.74 −1.051 0.307
The full score is 5
Table 8.7 Comparison of the difference in the PEA scores of the teaching groups
Teaching strategies Mean dif. (post–pre) SD F Sig.
Direct −2.00 6.24 0.34 0.72
Hands-on 0.11 3.41
Simulation game-based −1.53 6.33
One-way ANOVA
8 Plastic Waste Problem and Education for Plastic Waste Management 135
8.4.2.3 Recycling Attitude
In the tests, there were a series of questions asking about the recycling attitudes of
the pupils. The results of the pre- and post-tests showed that there was no significant
difference in the recycling attitudes of the pupils from each teaching group before
and after the program. However, the post-test mean scores of the pupils from the
hands-on group and simulation game-based group were slightly higher than the
pre-test scores, indicating that there was a slight improvement, though insignificant,
in recycling attitude for the pupils learning through hands-on teaching and simu-
lation game-based teaching (Table 8.9).
8.4.2.4 Intended Behavior of Plastic Waste Recycling
The results in Tables 8.10 and 8.11 show that the pupils’intended behavior of
plastic waste recycling and management did not change much after they had gone
through the program, no matter which teaching group they had joined, with the
hands-on group achieving a slight improvement in this aspect.
8.4.3 Discussion
In summary, all of the three teaching strategies can significantly enhance pupils’
knowledge of the 3Rs and plastic waste problems and management, with the
simulation game-based strategy being the most effective of the three strategies in
Table 8.8 Pre- and Post-test mean scores of the recycling attitudes of the different teaching
groups
Teaching Strategies N Pre-mean Post-mean t-value Significance
p-value (2-tailed)
Direct 14 3.56 ±0.36 3.50 ±0.24 −0.715 0.487
Hands-on 10 3.52 ±0.38 3.59 ±0.50 0.633 0.543
Simulation game-based 21 3.54 ±0.40 3.56 ±0.37 0.279 0.783
The full score is 5
Table 8.9 Comparison of the difference in the recycling attitude scores of the teaching groups
Teaching strategies Mean dif. (post–pre) SD F Sig.
Direct −0.64 3.37 0.44 0.65
Hands-on 0.70 3.50
Simulation game-based 0.24 3.91
One-way ANOVA
136 C.-F. Chow et al.
this aspect, especially in the knowledge of the category of plastic and waste.
Although the three teaching strategies did not make significant changes in pupils’
ecological worldview attitudes, recycling attitudes, or behaviors in plastic waste
recycling and management, the hands-on strategy achieved improvement in the
pupils’ecological worldview attitudes and recycling attitudes and facilitated pupils’
behavior in plastic waste recycling and management, although to an insignificant
extent, while the simulation game-based strategy attained some enhancement in
recycling attitudes as well.
The above results coincided with the literature review of different environmental
education studies, which also suggested a number of elements which were asso-
ciated with those teaching methods that led to those desired outcomes of envi-
ronmental education (Stern, Powell, & Hill 2014). The benefit of direct teaching is
that it involves school teacher engagement so that teachers with their own verbal
and nonverbal communication styles act as role models in developing pupils’
environmental literacy. The benefit of hands-on teaching is that it is experiential.
That is, pupils can actively participate in a particular firsthand experience, which
develops their skills and perceptions of self-efficacy. The benefit of simulation
game-based teaching is that it allows pupils to have active and experiential
engagement in real-world environmental problems (Stern et al., 2014).
One recommendation for the CEES study is to lengthen the time duration of the
study for the sake of facilitating more significant changes in pupils’attitudes and
behaviors (So 2014). Pupils could acquire new knowledge through either one of
those teaching strategies easily in a short time, whereas it takes more time for their
attitudes and behaviors to undergo significant change as they may already have
inherent habits. Therefore, more time and human resources should be allocated to
hands-on teaching and simulation game-based teaching, which are labor intensive
and time-consuming, so as to change pupils’attitudes and intended behavior to a
more significant extent. Also, some more education tools should be used.
Table 8.10 Pre- and post-test mean scores of the intended behavior of the different teaching
groups
Teaching strategies N Pre-mean Post-mean t-value Significance
p-value (2-tailed)
Direct 10 3.49 ±0.68 3.20 ±0.83 −1.891 0.091
Hands-on 10 3.15 ±0.57 3.17 ±0.57 0.069 0.946
Simulation game-based 16 3.15 ±0.67 3.00 ±0.75 −0.655 0.522
The full score is 5
Table 8.11 Comparison of the difference in the intended behavior scores of the teaching groups
Teaching strategies Mean dif. (post–pre) SD F Sig.
Direct −3.80 6.36 0.41 0.67
Hands-on 0.20 9.14
Simulation game-based −1.94 11.83
One-wayANOVA
8 Plastic Waste Problem and Education for Plastic Waste Management 137
For example, it was reported that the innovative 8-compartment plastic recycling
bin (PRB) invented by CEES together with a poster and course intervention can
facilitate pupils’change in knowledge and intended behavior (Chow, Cheng,
Cheung, & So 2015).
8.5 Conclusion and Future Perspectives
To conclude, plastic waste problems are becoming increasingly serious all around
the world. To cope with the situation, education is of the essence. Different
countries have different education foci, but there is still room for improvement to
change all people’s knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors regarding plastic waste
management. CEES has adopted three different teaching strategies, which are the
direct teaching, hands-on, and simulation game-based strategies. It was found that
all these three teaching strategies can significantly improve pupils’knowledge,
while the hands-on and simulation game-based strategies can facilitate attitudes and
behavior, though insignificantly. Therefore, it would be good if the PRB is to be
employed as well as allocating more time and human resources to the hands-on and
simulation game-based teaching strategies so as to facilitate more significant
changes in pupils’attitudes and behaviors regarding plastic waste management.
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