Assessing the Gap Between Environmental Awareness and Solid Waste Recycling Behavior Across Five Zones of Kabul

Abstract

In Afghanistan, solid waste management remains a significant challenge. A major issue is the gap between what people know and what they actually do about recycling. This gap has not been properly studied in post-conflict countries like Afghanistan. To investigate this gap, we conducted a cross-sectional survey across different parts of Kabul city, involving 152 households. The results show that while 71.7% of residents are fully or partially aware of the harms of solid waste, only 21.7% consistently separate recyclable materials, and 26.2% never do so. This highlights a substantial awareness-action gap of nearly 50 percentage points. Chi-square analysis confirmed a statistically significant relationship between awareness and recycling behavior (χ² = 23.45, df = 9, p = 0.005). Waste disposal methods varied across households: 37.5% relied on private company collection, 27.6% used public bins, 22.4% depended on municipal collection, while 12.5% disposed of waste on roads or drains. Environmental pollution was identified as the most serious problem by 50.7% of respondents, followed by health problems (19.7%) and dirty roads (17.1%). These results indicate that environmental awareness does not automatically lead to recycling due to infrastructural barriers, such as inadequate collection services and lack of separate waste streams. Therefore, interventions should focus on improving collection systems and providing household separation facilities. This study provides empirical evidence to support sustainable waste management policymaking in Kabul and similar post-conflict urban settings.