General environmental knowledge is often attributed to positive environmental behaviour; however, a very little is known about how perceived and objective knowledge influences behaviour within the context of SSWM. This study measures people’s perceived and objective knowledge on SSWM methods and evaluates which one of these has more impact on participation. A semi-structured survey study was conducted on 400 adults. The results show that 83% of the participants were concerned about solid waste pollution; however, most of them knew very little about SSWM methods. Total participants’ scores for perceived and objective knowledge were 63 and 15%, respectively. The disparity between the perceived and objective knowledge was rather unexpected as 70% of the participants had a degree in higher education. Compared to objective knowledge, perceived knowledge had a larger impact on SSWM behaviour. In addition, the participants with perceived knowledge were more motivated to receive education on SSWM than the others. The findings suggest that a sense of understanding related to perceived knowledge positively correlates with public engagement. In conclusion, the environmental educators should develop effective active learning techniques to equip the learners with both types of knowledge focusing more on the perceived one as part of the compulsory education.

一般的环境知识通常归因于积极的环境行为。然而，关于感知和客观知识如何在SSWM上下文中影响行为的知识很少。这项研究测量了人们对SSWM方法的感知和客观知识，并评估了其中一种对参与的影响更大。对400名成年人进行了半结构化调查研究。结果表明，83％的参与者关注固体废物污染；但是，大多数人对SSWM方法知之甚少。参与者的感知和客观知识总分分别为63％和15％。由于70％的参与者拥有高等教育学位，因此在感知知识和客观知识之间的差异是相当出乎意料的。与客观知识相比，感知知识对SSWM行为的影响更大。此外，具有知觉知识的参与者比其他参与者更有动力接受SSWM的教育。研究结果表明，与感知知识相关的理解感与公众参与呈正相关。总之，环境教育者应开发有效的主动学习技术，使学习者掌握两种类型的知识，而更多地侧重于作为义务教育一部分的感知知识。