Analysis of Attitudes towards Food Waste in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Using Fuzzy Logic

Areej Malibari, Ghada Alsawah, Wafaa Saleh () and Maha M. A. Lashin
Additional contact information
Areej Malibari: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, College of Engineering, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, P.O. Box 84428, Riyadh 11671, Saudi Arabia
Ghada Alsawah: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, College of Engineering, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, P.O. Box 84428, Riyadh 11671, Saudi Arabia
Wafaa Saleh: Transport Research Institute, School Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment, Edinburgh Napier University, Edinburgh EH10 5D, UK
Maha M. A. Lashin: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, College of Engineering, Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, P.O. Box 84428, Riyadh 11671, Saudi Arabia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: Attitudes and feelings towards food waste and positions on management policies have been vastly increased over the past few decades. Most of the available research on the analysis of attitudes towards food waste have been carried out using conventional statistical methods. This paper aims to assess and analyse attitudes and preferences of young Saudi females towards a number of policies and plans that are designed to meeting sustainable targets, using fuzzy logic analysis. This is a very important aim, especially since Vision 2030 in Saudi Arabia puts a major emphasis on sustainability, setting many resources to tackle environmental problems and achieving better social standards. The Methodology includes designing and collecting data from 199 participants using a questionnaire that includes 23 questions. Data were obtained from students at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University (PNU). The analysis includes utilising artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. Fuzzy logic analysis has been widely used in many fields, but has not seen many applications on food waste analysis and attitudes. Fuzzy logic analysis has the advantage of producing efficient results from smaller sample sizes and, in particular, with qualitative characteristics of the used indicators. The participants expressed positive preferences and attitudes towards the programs and policies that are designed to achieve sustainability and manage food waste. The results show that over 25% of them prefer the option of “storage for reuse” of food waste, over 35% prefer the option of distribute it to needed families and over 30% opted to the option of recycling to fertilisers. The study also reveals a very good level of awareness and appreciation of food waste and plans associated with it. The implications from this study suggest that despite the positive attitudes, there still is more research needed to obtain full understanding of attitudes towards food waste from the whole range of the population in order to gain knowledge and build specific programs to reduce food waste and achieve sustainability in the country.

Keywords: food waste; students’ attitudes; food waste in KSA; fuzzy logic analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3668/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3668/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:3668-:d:1070983

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().