"A Study To Assess Knowledge And Practice Regarding Health Hazards Of Burning Plastic Among Residents Of Selected Urban Community Ollukkara Block Panchayath, Thrissur"

Abstract: Despite all of the economic problems and environmental discussions on the dangers and hazards of plastic materials, plastic production worldwide is growing at a rate of about 5% per year. However, a large fraction of plastics are still being discarded in landfills or subjected to intentional or incidental open-fire burning. The current study aims to assess the knowledge and practice regarding health hazards of burning plastic among residents of selected urban community. The objectives of the study are to assess the knowledge and practice regarding health hazards burning plastic among residents, and to find out association between knowledge and practice regarding health hazards of burning plastic with their selected demographical variable, to find out correlation between knowledge and practice regarding health hazards of burning plastic among residents of selected urban community. The study focuses on residents of selected urban community from Ollukkara block Panchayat of Thrissur district Kerala. The research approach adopted for the study is quantitative and the design is descriptive. For the study 100 residents from Pranavam Nagar were selected by using convenient sampling technique. Data was collected using a demographic sheet, standardized questionnaire regarding knowledge of health hazards of burning plastic and practice was assessed by a checklist. The results shows that out of 100 samples 31 samples(31%) had adequate knowledge and 65 samples(65%) had moderate knowledge and 4 samples (4%) had inadequate knowledge regarding health hazards of burning plastic. Regarding the practice 8 samples (8%) had X excellent practice, 39 samples (39%) had very good practice, 39samples(39%) had good practice and 4 samples(4%) had poor practice. The study also showed that a positive correlation between the knowledge and practice with “r” value is 0.265*. Significant association was found between knowledge and practice with their selected demographic variable like method of waste disposal (χ 2=35.1).