Zero waste applicability in domestic solid waste for Bursa: A survey study

The aim of this study is to analyze how effective the awareness and awareness-raising studies and trainings given by municipalities and related institutions for individuals residing in Bursa are, the knowledge levels of individuals and the applicability of the zero waste project in Bursa. In addition, measuring how zero waste is evaluated in Bursa and the attitude of the people towards it were determined as among the main objectives. With this research, both drawing attention to the zero waste project and raising awareness were among the main objectives. This study was preferred because it was not found in the literature in a previous article or study dealing with the example of Bursa province. In this study, an online questionnaire, which was completely voluntary and prepared in electronic form, was filled by 589 participants. In this study, first of all, the situation of domestic solid waste in Bursa was examined and the data in the literature were collected, then the data and findings collected from the survey study were examined. This survey study basically consists of 24 questions to be answered by the participants and whether these questions vary according to 4 parameters, namely age, marital status, gender and educational status, or whether these parameters affect the understanding of the zero waste project on individuals. This questionnaire used a cross-sectional study design and the data collected from the Questionnaire were analyzed through the SPSS 26 application with several tests, namely ANOVA and t-Test. The main results that emerged with this study are that, according to the marital status parameter, it was shown that married people have higher zero waste awareness compared to single participants, and women pay more attention to environmental awareness and pollution prevention than male participants. According to the educational status parameter of the participants, the survey results showed that university students care more about zero waste and personal waste management than students at other education levels. When the age parameter is taken as a basis, it has been shown that the participants in the 26-35 age range consider zero waste and environmental waste awareness more than other age ranges. It is expected that the results of this study will have a positive effect on decision makers.