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Recycling in Singapore

By Wei Seng

Cant rely on the karang guni man for our recycling future right?

I read this article in The Straits Times last week about recycling in Singapore and how Singapore "has First World technology but Third World attitudes" with regard to recycling: plenty of green technology being developed comparable to that in the West, but poor adoption or underutilization of such technologies or facilities, comparable to that of many developing nations.

Singapore, on the surface, has a good recycling culture: 57% national recycling rate last year. Unfortunately "what gets recycled reveals that the rates are highest for construction debris... generated from industrial use and recycled by scrap dealers". In terms of common materials being recycled, the recycling rate is highest for paper (48%, probably thanks to the karang guni man who comes around to collect old newspapers every so often) and lowest for plastic (9%, because there are few facilities for collection of plastics for recycling as well as little awareness of plastics recycling). Households and businesses (not including industries) are not doing enough in the recycling effort apparently.

The writer Grace Chua suggests that "recycling should be legislated", which the government currently is loath to do in fear of inflicting higher costs. Then again, how much more incineration and landfilling can we do? Incineration seems to burn the trash problem away but the contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is not insignificant. While only incinerator ash and trash that cannot be incinerated are buried at the landfill (currently on Pulau Semakau), there will come a day whereby the landfill will be full and hopefully we wont have to "ship (our) ash to neighbouring countries... or find pricey ways to use the ash in construction".

Laws that promote recycling could start by demanding that businesses recycle certain packaging they use or produce in making their goods, or mandate the compulsory sorting of trash for recycling. More expensive but certainly more useful and direct would be to have recycling chutes in each block rather than the current setup of bins shared among a group of blocks in an estate, which recycling companies rarely empty. Singaporeans are too used to convenience that the added trouble of going downstairs to throw away recyclables would doom / have doomed the recycling effort in HDB estates. I used to have recycling bins at the void deck of the block next door, but several months back when I tried to dispose of some recyclables the bins had disappeared. Apparently it has been underutilized and hence removed by the recycling company.

Financial incentives could also be used, and it would probably work if people are motivated just as they sell newspapers to the karang guni man (rag and bone man) for money. Landfill taxes or charging by volume of waste collected would create incentives to cut waste produced and recycle (or reduce and reuse, even better for the environment) more. Such incentives have to be introduced because unfortunately for the karang guni men, their numbers are dwindling and they are collecting less and less of newspapers (recycling companies are paying them less and less for the amount of paper collected) and more and more of what brings in the money, which in recent times would include old wine such as aged XO or old, damaged electronics. So to continue to rely on the karang guni men to instill the habit of recycling would not be sensible.

To appeal to the competitive streak in us Singaporeans, Singapore needs to catch up with other countries that Singapore supposedly competes with on the global arena. Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, all Asian economic giants and considered to be of First World stature, all have very good recycling initiatives and high househould recycling rates. It is not feasible to just rely on industries to recycle and do their part for the environment, households and businesses have to get into the recycling habit as well, if not for the environment, at least for their wallets.