Household waste retains an absolute majority of municipal solid waste (MSW) sources to which most costs of municipal waste management are allocated. MSW constitutes approximately 10 percent of the waste produced, generating approximately 50 million kilograms of MSW in Iran annually. Solid waste management (SWM), therefore, assumes a prominent role in municipal services. Keeping the view of serious health problems associated with population growth, rapid development and urbanization, providing a suitable waste management is perceived a challenging task in many communities. Developing countries suffer greatly from these problems, where garbage collection operations do not occur at all or not enough. The best and most economical method for dealing with these setbacks is to minimize the generation of waste. Recycling of previously used materials has also been found to alleviate deleterious impacts of increasing amount of waste. Although, it has been reported that more than half of all solid waste is recyclable, it is interesting to note that a substantial amount of recyclable waste is dumped into the garbage. Hence, people play a prominent part in SWM elements such as waste generation, source separation, storage, collection, recycling and disposal. However, owing to a lack of public participation in recycling programs and also an apparent lack of funding for waste transfer, the waste management sector in the developing country of Iran is faced with a growing concern of household waste disposal. Despite the fact that about 60–80% of municipal solid waste is recycled and turns back to the consumption cycle in European countries and the United States, reports in contrary to the most developed countries demonstrating only 8% of household waste recycling in Iran; however, exist. The remaining MSW is buried using unhygienic methods.
It is worth-noting therefore that, besides providing the MSW infrastructures (by local government), achievement of integrated municipal solid waste management starts with understanding public concerns, preferences, knowledge and behaviour. The most cost-effective way of reducing household waste include public education and citizen encouragement to share in the design of household recycling processes. Moreover, citizens’ participation in the source separation process strongly affects the success of household recycling programs. Thus, there is a crucial need to test and carry out theory-based detailed surveys to fathom the mechanisms responsible for citizen participation in the waste management programs. Assessment of factors influencing these behaviours including knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) has been conducted extensively across literature. Knowledge is a familiarity, awareness or understanding of a community, such as facts, information, descriptions, or skills towards the topic of interest, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning. Attitude is a settled way of thinking or feeling about something and refers to the community thoughts which may have tended to it. Practice, on the other hand, is an action based on the community knowledge and attitudes. Knowledge and attitude are two factors determining behaviour of society and the people in it.
