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  Today Online 14 Nov 05
Better but not good enough
Response by NEA

Today Online 8 Nov 05
The dirt on being clean
Ong Ching Ping

WE flaunt our city as being "Clean and Green", but are we truly?

Yes, we are green, in a cosmetic, superficial sense: we have lots of trees and flowers to make things pretty. And we are clean: our streets aren't lined with litter and filth which is commonplace in most major cities.

But at what and whose expense? We are clean because we have scores of public and domestic workers cleaning up after us and because the Government fines us if we spit or litter. But are we clean because we take pride in our environment?

I think not. Many Singaporeans litter when they think no one was looking. Look at the state in which people leave their tables at the hawker centres: there are dirty plates, used tissues and food scraps all over and the expectation that the hired staff will clean up after them.

Being green isn't just about planting trees and bushes. Yes, plants help manage pollution levels, but what about reducing, re-using and recycling? For those neighbourhoods with a regular recycling system, a once-a-week collection isn't so bad: but once in two weeks? How do you remember which week it is? That just doesn't make it very convenient to recycle.

Unless one is conscientious, environmentally-aware individual, there doesn't seem to be any incentive for the masses to recycle. Densely-populated areas such as condominiums and HDB flats are perfect places to put in place a more sustained recycling programme. Just one area is needed for collecting. Hawker centres and food courts are a good place for such a programme, too: how many glass bottles and aluminium cans are discarded at these places each day? How much fruit and vegetable waste can be collected and used for composting, or turned to biofuel?

Styrofoam is hygienic, but terrible for the environment. Let's go back to using crockery and paper wraps instead.

And what about company waste? If every office had a paper recycling system, thousands of trees can be saved. Companies that change letterheads or logos can donate their unwanted old stationery to schools.

Other countries have more comprehensive recycling systems in place, where:

People are charged for the amount of waste thrown out. Recyclable materials don't count. So the more you recycle, the less waste you pay for.

Consumers pay for recyclable materials and get refunds when they bring them back for recycling. A six-pack of soft drinks that come in aluminium cans or bottled drinks have a 5-cent charge per can/bottle incorporated into the price: bring your cans/bottles to the recycling centre and you get that cash back.

Consumers pay for plastic bags at the supermarket. Bring your own bags and you save. The same could be done at hawker centres: bring your own containers for takeaway. What happened to good old tiffin carriers?

Public garbage cans have a basket contraption on the top to differentiate between regular rubbish and recyclables so one can separate recyclables without having to look for a recycling station. Convenience is key!

Part of "going green" involves educating the public; the other part is making sure proper systems are in place. If Singapore wants to have a Clean & Green Week, then let's be really clean and green, and not just superficially so.

This was contributed by a reader.

Today Online 14 Nov 05
Better but not good enough

NEA has facilitated recycling and more are going green but littering is still a bugbear

Letter from Ong Seng Eng Head, Resource Conservation Department and S Satish Appoo Head, Environmental Health Department National Environment Agency

We refer to the commentary, "The Dirt on Being Clean" (Nov 8), and thank reader Ong Ching Ping for the feedback.

Much has gone into making our environment clean and green these past three decades and there are many individuals who do make an effort.

Not all of us, however, have shown sufficient care for the environment: the litter on our streets and even those in our recycling bins are proof of this. So yes, we still have some way to go before we can be a nation of people who take care of the environment and take ownership of it.

What is the level of awareness and commitment of Singaporeans today?

Statistics show that more households are recycling now. Compared to only 33 per cent in 2002, some 54 per cent of households participated in the door-to-door National Recycling Programme last year.

Some 74 per cent of schools have also implemented the Recycling Corner Programme since the initiative was launched in 2002. The number of recycling bins in public places has also increased from 3,800 in 2002 to 5,300.

To make it even more convenient for the public to recycle, the National Environment Agency (NEA) is working with public-waste collectors and town councils to provide at least one set of recycling bins for every 5 blocks of HDB flats by 2007, to supplement the current door-to-door fortnightly collection of recyclables. This means another 1,600 sets of recycling bins. . But recycling bins is just half of the solution. They will remain empty if no one puts recyclables into them. Worse still, if the recycling bins are misused as litter-bins.

When this happens, the cost of maintaining these bins goes up, which then jeopardises the whole programme.

Littering is still a problem today. NEA would like to urge everyone to keep Singapore free of litter so that we can all enjoy a clean and hygienic environment. We should not depend on our cleaners to keep our public areas clean or expect them to clean up after us.

Continual education of residents is essential to instill social and environmental responsibility. In this respect, NEA will continue with its various programmes to make recycling, reducing and reusing, as well as refraining from littering, a habit among Singaporeans. Enforcement of the law to deter litterbugs will continue.

If each of us recycles all our paper waste, cans, tins, bottles and packaging, we will reduce the waste disposed of at our incineration plants and landfill, and enable the material to be reprocessed for use, thereby reducing the need to use more resources.

If each of us can avoid taking a few plastic bags every day, we will together save millions of plastic bags every year. These seemingly small actions will go a long way in preserving our environment.

Likewise, properly disposing unwanted pamphlets, tissues and cigarette butts will help to keep our streets and waterways clean and beautiful.
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