Recycling and Lateral Thinking - Why Not Redevelop Landed Property First?

I almost choked on my morning mug of tea, to read this:

ST Forum

Nov 27, 2010

60% of Singaporeans recycle now

WE THANK Mr Allan Harkness ('Going green in the heartland: Still stuck with an 'F'') and Mr Lim Beo Loon ('Other problems are cost...') for their letters on Nov 19.

Based on feedback from public waste collectors, the average household participation rate in our national recycling programme has increased from 14 per cent in 2001 to 63 per cent last year. Our surveys also indicate that more than 60 per cent of Singaporeans recycle now.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) organises community events, such as Recycling Week, Clean & Green Singapore, and NEA Community Day, to educate the public on waste minimisation and recycling.

The public can help by segregating waste into recyclable and non-recyclable, using reusable shopping bags and rechargeable batteries, while industries should work towards using less packaging materials.

As the value of recyclables depends on the market, all forms of recycling entails a cost that must be borne by the Government, consumer or waste collector.

NEA will consider requiring public waste collectors to provide more recycling bins and look into the frequency of collection when their contracts are up for renewal, if the benefits outweigh the costs.

Ong Seng Eng
Director
Resource Conservation Department
National Environment Agency

I instantly thought about Mark Twain and the saying he often used:

Mark Twain, the 100th anniversary of whose death was in April this year, was never known to be soft-spoken about his opinions. He popularized the phrase, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics,” caustically opining the view that numbers can be used to dissemble truth.

Not for a moment am I calling the NEA a bunch of liars, but I do question the sources and methodology used for the collection of the statistics fed to them. (LATER: see note below)

From what I have seen during these six months that I have been here, I wonder how the waste collection companies know how many households recycle their waste? 

Each household is given a number of plastic recycling bags - I live in an apartment block and they are placed in our mailbox. If I need more, I ask the management for more.

I don't know how many bags are delivered to homes on landed property, be it a terrace house, semi-detached or single family home.

Twice a month, on Tuesdays, we put out our recycling bag(s) and they are taken downstairs to await collection. On such a basis, how would anyone know how many units in this development (and others like it) recycle?

It would be nice to think that 60% of Singapore households recycle; and I would hope that more than 60% of individual citizens recycle.

The SCMP ran this cartoon which I think apt for the claimed 'green' credentials in Hong Kong and I daresay, Singapore too:

It has been our wont to spend part of each year in Hong Kong and north Florida and the impression I have formed from using my own eyes is that the people in both those places recycle far more than people in Singapore.

Hong Kongers, despite letters to the SCMP and cartoons like this, are far more environmentally conscious and their green groups much more active.

In northeast Florida, I find that some communities are more active than others; they put out their bright blue recycling bins on recycling day. 

In our community of some 500+ homes we have to take our recycling to a recycling corner where there are receptacles for bottles, plastics, plastic bags and paper. I could not tell you how many homes actually drive their recycleables to the recycling corner but the bins do fill up regularly.

Singapore is a different experience. Some years ago the management of our condominium estate installed recycling bins in the basement; it was not a success because household waste (think pampers for example) was thrown willy-nilly into the recycling bins. They were soon removed.

More recently we were issued the recycling bags provided by the public waste collection companies. I have no idea if and how they are being used by the householders.

But of I had not taught our helper (who arrived from the Philippines in June) what recycling means and showed her what to put in the bags, she would have either not used them or put all manner of things in them.

I had her put all the items she though might be recyclable into a spare bin and before recycling day we would go through the bin to sort out what to dispose down our chute (neatly bundled and secured) and what to place in the bags for recycling morning.

At that time I scoured the NEA's website for pamphlets to illustrate how to separate the different items but every poster I found did not play well with my A4 size printer format. I wrote in to NEA - on Oct 26th.

This morning (Nov 29th), I went back to their website and see little improvement. Visit these pages (which take some looking for): http://app2.nea.gov.sg/data/cmsresource/20100120281853527479.pdf

http://app2.nea.gov.sg/data/cmsresource/20090511531613540247.pdf

Print them out and decide how useful they are if you had a domestic helper who reads a smidgin of English. I would say that larger, more graphic illustrations that can be reproduced on a home printer are needed.

For another, the number of people living in Singapore has mushroomed in recent years. Many of our new residents and new workers come from countries where recycling takes a different form or is not a regular practice.

Now they are here, they all should get to know about recycling.

We all like to feel good or to feel we are doing some good; so why not divert some of the vast amount we spend on lighting up Singapore on a well conceived and well executed campaign to educate all and sundry about recycling and really provide the means for all to recycle?

I was at our country club the other day and while the intention is good, the execution is poor - we have rather ugly recycling bins prominently displayed at the main entrances to the swimming clubhouse. There must be some way to make them more part of the scenery.

As far as I can recall we don't have recycling bins in many other other locations, and certainly not tasteful looking ones (as befitting a grand clubhouse). I have not been into the kitchens and pantry areas and wonder if they recycle as that is where most of the waste would be handled.

Opportunities for Mr and Ms Public to recycle are not many. The bins along Orchard Road are often full, so perhaps more recycling bins could be deployed, especially close to fast food outlets.

The emptying of trash and recycling bins throughout Singapore, even at the brand new Khoo Teck Puat Hospital which I visited today, needs to happen with greater frequency. Certainly when these bins are along high traffic routes or outside food or convenience outlets.

But being ecologically responsible means more than sorting and recycling our trash; it's also using and re-using bags for groceries and shopping. 

I went to a fair over the weekend and every stall-holder offered me a plastic bag with my purchase.

At the wet market and even in supermarkets my purchases are bundled into plastic bags, which the hypocrite that I am, I accept. I then try to assuage my conscience by using them to contain our household rubbish prior to putting the rubbish down the chute.

In Hong Kong I am charged each time I need a plastic bag at the neighbourhood supermarket. In Florida I am offered a choice of paper or plastic.

NOTE: in rummaging through the NEA website today I came upon some tables and lists, none of them particularly helpful in arriving at precisely how much of our domestic waste is being recycled.

I am not of a scientific or mathematical bent so excuse me if I misunderstand things. Looking at total waste generated and total waste recycled (57%) it is easy to see that almost 60% of the population with access to waste collection services have their waste recycled.

Surely 

if ALL HDB estates have recycling programmes AND if 80-90 percent of people live in HDB estates why do only 60% of the population recycle?

Mind you, 

NEA has a 

List of Condominiums/Private Apartments with Recycling Programme (Updated as of Dec 07) 

which contains ONLY 353 names. 

So maybe the non-greenies are in private housing? But that doesn't sound right either.

As for what is recycled it is disappointing that glass (eminently recycleable) has a recycling rate of only 21%. Only 48% of cardboard/paper is recycled, 38% of horticultural waste (all that mulch and compost gone to waste?), a paltry 12% of textiles/leather is recycled and 9% of plastics.

But what do I know of the technicalities of recycling? Zip, zero I admit.

One would have to be blind not to notice that we light up Orchard Road like a Christmas tree, Marina Bay for tourists to admire our spectacular skyline at night, and the Formula 1 GP circuit for Bernie's tv coverage for the world. 


None of these are particularly eco-friendly.


Neither is enabling greedy developers to evict us from homes that are a mere ten or twenty years old in order to to demolish and build new buildings. Ten or twenty years is not old for buildings - or for people. So why the need to tear down and build when we should be minding our carbon footprint?


Considering that this demolish and build activity mainly affects non-landed property (low-,  medium- or high-rise) this displaces more happy families at any one go than tearing down a large bungalow (one family) to replace it with a 28-storey block of flats.


Hmmm, from a humanitarian point of view, it makes me wonder why we didn't start this redevelopment of Singapore with landed property?