Chemistry students’ knowledge and practices of chemical waste management in chemistry laboratories

The study investigated chemistry students’ knowledge and practices of chemical waste management in chemistry laboratories in a higher educational institution in Ghana. A descriptive survey design was employed, and the stratified sample comprised 93 chemistry major students who were selected from levels 100, 200 and 300 in the University of Education, Winneba. Questionnaires and unstructured interviews were used to collect data which were then analyzed by descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (t-test and correlation). The results revealed students’ good knowledge of, yet poor practices of chemical waste management in the various chemistry laboratories. The t-test conducted revealed a statistically significant difference (p=0.000<0.05) in students’ knowledge and practices of chemical waste management in the school’s chemistry laboratories. Also, a Pearson correlation (r=0.415) corroborated the finding that students weakly put their good knowledge of chemical waste management into practice. It is recommended that tertiary educational institutions to build a culture of sustainability and environmental protection following Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 6 and SDG 11) [3] among science students by encouraging them to put their knowledge about waste management into practice and protect the environment.