Educação Ambiental e Resíduos Sólidos Urbanos: Caminho para um Futuro Sustentável Environmental Education and Urban Solid Waste: Path to a Sustainable Future

Urban solid waste poses a great threat to environment and public health. In order to raise public awareness about this issue, the present study was undertaken with a focus on environmental education (EE). The objective was to evaluate the environmental knowledge of students enrolled on the government compulsory education program. A survey of 480 students from four Portuguese schools in northern Portugal. Parallel to this survey, was conducted alongside interviews with executives of key businesses in the environment/education sector. The main results indicate that 48.54% of respondents know the meaning of EE, while only 39.17% do follow EE directives; 65.63% regularly separate waste and 35.63% think that EE was crucial for them to act accordingly. In short, 83.13% of respondents consider that EE is important to society and 88.54% think that recycling/composting activities are very important to the environment.