Advocacy For New Recycling Policies In Singapore

Over the past few years a great emphasis has been placed on recycling, with most of these efforts targeted at making recycling more convenient. For instance, we have blue recycling bins placed at easily accessible locations, some even right outside one’s house. Furthermore, in the next few years, recycling chutes will be installed in every HDB household. Yet, our household recycling rate, at 22% in 2018, is far from desirable. If we take a look at other countries, Germany, in which citizens have to sort their recyclables into six different bins by themselves, have a municipal recycling rate of about 66%. It is clear that the lack of convenience is not to blame for low household recycling rates.

The root of the problem is obvious. As said by Tong Yen Wah, co-director of the Energy and Environmental Sustainability Solutions for Megacities programme, “The lack of awareness and indifference only partly explains the absence of recycling habits [in Singapore]. . . In most cases people do not recycle simply because they are not required to do so. ”

With this in mind, it would be foolish to continue with our current measures. We need to stop rolling out initiatives that may look and sound good but don’t produce results. In the short remaining time that we have we need to adopt a more feasible and effective method to tackling our low recycling rate issue.

It is no secret that our household recycling rates are far from desirable. Evidently, Approaches to recycling need to be changed. A greater push factor is needed. Therefore I urge you to implement new laws and make recycling mandatory for Singaporeans.

In South Korea, a mandatory recycling scheme has drastically decreased the amount of food the country throws away. Its recycling rate for food waste increased from less than 2% in 1995 to 95% today. Similarly, Taiwan’s recycling rate from 5% to 55%, after it adopted the Pay-As-You-Throw method, which charges citizens based on the amount of non-recyclable waste that they dispose. Recycling legislation and compulsory recycling has proven to be the most effective way to increase the recycling rate. Therefore it is all the more reason for Singapore to go down this path as well.

Singapore is no stranger to legislation. Over the years of nation building we have rolled out countless legislations and they have all worked in our favour. For example, education was made compulsory for all children in 2000, Singaporeans abided by the law, and now Singapore is top in all the international education rankings. Fines from littering have also contributed greatly to our clean streets. Singapore is known as a “fine city” worldwide, and we have to recognise that it is because of these heavy fines, strict laws and tight regulations that Singapore is the orderly, clean and well-governed country that it is today. It is all the more obvious, that this is the approach that we need to adopt in the limited amount of time we have.

Last year, I went to Japan for an exchange programme for 3 weeks. As I was living with a host family, I was required to follow their recycling practices. In those 3 weeks, not only did I have to separate my trash into recyclable and non-recyclable, but I also had to separate the recyclables into different categories. We also had to follow a schedule, that stated what category of trash we could bring the trash collection point each day. It was a routine that I needed a lot of getting used to as I hardly recycled back in Singapore. However after those 3 weeks, I was so accustomed to the practices that I continued to recycle even when I’m back home. It was only because it was made compulsory for me that I picked up the habit of recycling.

Admittedly, there are risks that come with this policy. The public will be unhappy with the government for imposing yet another set of rules on them and we don’t know for sure if this method will turn out to be successful. However, one thing is for sure. If we don’t act now, our landfill will be filled up, we will run out of resources and our country will be increasingly polluted. Who is to blame then, when our health of our people and our economic development is compromised. Is it the fault of the people for not recycling, or the schools for not educating the young, or the government officials who sat by, proceeding with measures they knew were of no use, when the solution was in their hands.

All the best strategies in the world cannot achieve the desired results unless the implementation is decisive and timely. With 16 years before our only landfill is filled up, we really have no time. We need to act fast, we need to act now to sustain our country.