Budget 2011: Recycling programme to be enhanced with one bin per HDB block [News]

Singapore will enhance its National Recycling Programme (NRP) by providing one recycling bin for every HDB block with daily collection.

This is an increase from the previous rate of one bin for every five blocks of HDB flats.

On average, a resident in Singapore generates 860 grammes of waste every day – which is one third more than in Germany or Taiwan.

Over a year, Singapore can dispose enough waste to cover one eighth of Singapore’s surface area, said Minister for Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim in Parliament on Friday.

To reduce waste and encourage more recycling, “we will make it easier for households to recycle. Households can now look forward to more recycling bins and more frequent collection services,” said Dr Yaacob. Read more

Incentives to Promote Recycling [News]

Households will be encouraged to recycle more through incentives given by waste-collection companies.

The requirement to provide incentives, starting from July, will be stipulated when public waste collection contracts with companies are renewed.

Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim announced the incentive requirement when he spoke yesterday during the debate on his ministry’s budget, which was approved.

He was responding to Dr Lim Wee Kiak (Sembawang GRC), who had asked about the efforts being made by the ministry to boost household recycling. Read more

7 Types of Recycling at HDB Housing Estates in Singapore

Do you know that there are 7 common types of formal and informal recycling at HDB housing estates in Singapore? If you’re staying in a HDB flat, you would likely come across or participate in one or more of those types of recycling.

Let’s take a look at the 7 common types of recycling in HDB estates:

1) National Recycling Programme (NRP)

The National Environment Agency (NEA) has implemented the National Recycling Programme (NRP) since 2001, where recycling bags or bins are given to residents living in HDB housing estates and landed properties. These recycling bags and bins are provided by the licensed recycling contractors and the recyclables are collected once every two weeks at the doorstep.

2) Centralised Recycling Depositories (CRDs)

To complement the NRP, NEA has requested the recycling contractors to place centralised recycling depositories (CRDs) at all HDB estates, since August 2007. There will be a CRD for every 5 blocks of flats and the locations of the CRDs can be found at OneMap under the Environment – Recycling Bins theme.

3) Recycling Exchange

The recycling contractors usually organise a recycling exchange once a month by working with the Residents’ Committee (RC) to set up recycling stations for residents to exchange their recyclables for cash or food items. For example, Colex has the Cash for Trash Programme in the Jurong sector, and Veolia has the Recycling Exchange Initiative (REIT) in the Pasir Ris-Tampines, Bedok, and Tanglin-Bukit Merah sectors.

4) Tzu Chi Recycling Day

During the Tzu Chi Recycling Day, which falls on every second Sunday of the month from 8.30am to 11.30am, the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation volunteers will set up recycling points at housing estates in 14 locations across the island. The volunteers encourage residents to bring their recyclable items from their houses and to help in the sorting of the items.

5) School Recycling Collection

There are frequent school recycling collection initiated by students to collect newspapers and old clothing for fundraising or for charity. The students doing the recycling collection for an area usually have to work with the licensed recycling contractor who are in-charge of the NRP for that area, and sell the recyclables to them.

6) Karang Guni Recycling Collection

The traditional unlicensed karang guni man or rag-and-bone man goes from door-to-door to collect items from residents, such as newspapers, televisions, radios, and computers. The karang guni man usually pays residents for the items. The items are sold to a waste recycling company or to a secondhand dealer.

7) Informal Recycling Collection

The informal recycling collection is usually done by the unlicensed poor elderly, who go through the rubbish bins in the neighbourhood and pick up recyclables such as newspapers, carton boxes and drink cans, from the bins. They usually sell the recyclables to a waste recycling company or to a secondhand dealer.

‘Can Recycle?’ Shows Items that are Acceptable for Recycling

We have been receiving frequent enquiries from our readers on whether certain waste items can be recycled under the National Recycling Programme (NRP) or through the public recycling bins.

To be honest, we don’t have all the answers. So we started this new initiative called ‘Can Recycle?‘. We compiled a list of 70 common waste items and checked with the National Environment Agency (NEA) on whether the items are acceptable for recycling through the NRP or recycling bins.

In Can Recycle?, you will find images of items categorised under Paper, Plastics, Metal, Glass, and Others. Point your cursor at the image and you can see the description of the item with comments from NEA.

Check out the list of items in Can Recycle?

Explore Simple and Cost-Effective Ways to Maximise the Use of Our Existing Recycling Infrastructure

Grace Chua from the Straits Times wrote an article yesterday on Recycling: Time to get our act together. She suggested some laws and improvements to increase the recycling efforts of households and businesses.

Before considering her suggestions for households, I would suggest that the National Environment Agency (NEA) explore simple and cost-effective ways to maximise the use of our existing recycling infrastructure, which often is underutilised or misused.

The National Recycling Programme (NRP) has been implemented at HDB estates and landed properties since 2001, where residents are given either recycling bags or bins for recyclables, which are collected once every 2 weeks from their doorsteps. With the NRP, households can recycle conveniently and do not even have to walk downstairs to the nearest recycling bin or walk out of their house to the chutes to recycle. Households can also make use of the recycling bins near their flats since there are one set of recycling bins for every five blocks of flats.

For households in condominiums and private apartments, they can recycle through the recycling programme at their residence as it is mandatory from 2008 for all condominiums and private apartments to put in place recycling programmes.

With the existing recycling infrastructure, the NEA should aim to maximise its usage and tweak it to increase recycling, before deciding to implement new laws, place more bins or add more separate chutes system, which is likely to increase business costs and be passed on to the residents.

To make full use of the existing recycling infrastructure, the NEA could study simple and cost-effective ways to “nudge” households and increase recycling participation. In the book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, the authors pointed out two common misconceptions on change, which we can adapt to help increase recycling.

One, “what looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity”. We need to provide crystal-clear direction to the households on the recycling programme. Some questions to ask: Are the households aware or clear about the NRP in terms of why there is a need to have the programme; how the programme works; what items can be recycled; how the collection is done; how frequent is the collection, and where the recyclables end up? Can we appoint volunteer recycling ambassadors or guides to help the residents? Can we use more mass media and social media to explain the recycling programme and spread the message?

Two, “what looks like a people problem is often a situation problem”. We need to make it easier for the households to recycle by tweaking the existing recycling infrastructure. Some questions to ask: How to make it easier for households to remember the recycling dates; identify what items can be recycled; and find the nearest recycling bin? Can we place a reminder on each rubbish bin and chute to remind residents to recycle? Can we provide data for comparing recycling performance for each estate or block? Can we use social media and smartphone apps to remind residents on their recycling collection dates? Can we place better images of recyclables on the recycling bags or bins to show clearly what items are recyclable?

The NEA should study simple and cost-effective ways before implementing new laws, bins or systems whose increased costs could be borne by the residents.

Besides recycling, it is also important to focus more on reduce and reuse. There is a sequence to the widely known 3Rs – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. “Reduce” should always be practised first to minimise or prevent the waste from being generated in the beginning. Next, “Reuse” the generated waste over again for the same or different purpose. Lastly, “Recycle” the waste so that it can be processed and used as a new material. Recycling still involves energy and resources to process the used material, and should be done last.

An edited version was published at ST Forum Online.

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