S’pore’s increasing waste poses potential crisis [News]

S’pore’s increasing waste poses potential crisis By Kok Xing Hui, TODAY, 3 Jul 2013. The dense haze episode two weeks ago was a “special, extreme case of waste disposal gone wrong”, said Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan yesterday. It was agricultural waste incinerated out in the open, leading to smog in the air that people were forced to breathe, said the minister, who cited the haze as an example of how the rising amount of waste generated posed a threat to the environment. Speaking at the Waste Management Symposium and 3R Packaging Awards yesterday, he noted that the amount of waste generated per person per day currently has doubled from the World Bank estimate of 0.64kg a decade ago. The 0.64kg figure is expected to triple in the next 10 years. This poses a potential environmental crisis, as air and environment quality is crucial in a world where half the people live in densely-populated cities. This compared to the past, when cities were less populated and “only a few are inconvenienced” if things went wrong. Click here to read the full article. Source: TODAY