Affiliations 

  • 1 Universiti Teknologi MARA
MyJurnal

Abstract

Plastic packaging is widely used by hawkers to pack food items within the foodservice industry. Despite of the various benefits brought about by plastics within the foodservice industry, concerns associated to food safety and solid waste disposal have been raised. Therefore, a study that involved 131 food hawkers at night markets in Kuala Selangor, Selangor, had been carried out to evaluate their perceptions pertaining to the use of plastic packaging to pack hot food items. As such, this study investigated the correlations between perceptions of food hawkers towards awareness, health hazards, environmental hazards, regulations, and the practice of using plastic packaging to pack hot edible food items. In addition, this study determined the most relevant predictor that influences the practice of using plastic packaging. A cross-sectional survey that integrated a self-administered structured questionnaire was employed for the purpose of this study. The retrieved data were analysed by using SPSS version 21. The study outcomes revealed that the food hawkers appeared to have good perceptions towards environmental hazard (3.52 ± 0.48) and regulation (3.51 ± 0.38), but poor perceptions on awareness (2.73 ± 0.66) and health hazard (2.55 ± 0.64). Nevertheless, significantly positive and moderate correlations were observed between health hazard (r = 0.45, p < 0.05), environmental hazard (r = 0.43, p < 0.05), regulations (r = 0.42, p < 0.05) and plastic packaging practices. The study reveals that health hazard emerges to be the main predictor of the plastic packaging practices. Hence, future studies may incorporate larger sample size and various locations in Malaysia as this study only serves as a platform to comprehend the practice of packing hot food items using plastic packaging from the stance of food hawkers.