The one common feature of all HDB flats and many private apartments today is this: the ubiquitous rubbish chute which makes it convenient for residents to get rid of their trash.
But ask Singapore Environment Council executive director Howard Shaw about it and he will tell you the rubbish chute is one thing that Singapore’s builders ‘got wrong’.
He, and many residents alike, blame the rubbish chute as a key obstacle in getting Singaporeans to recycle.
While many developed countries such as Switzerland hit recycling rates of 80 per cent, Singapore’s recycling rate was about 58 per cent last year.
This translates to 3.49 million tonnes recycled - of which just 0.36 million tonnes were from households - out of 6.1 million tonnes of waste.
It is not a shabby rate, but it could be much better.
Recycling rates have improved from the 40 per cent in 2000, and the Government has set targets to push the recycling rate to 60 per cent by 2012, and to 70 per cent by 2030.
But as the National Recycling Programme - introduced in 2001 by the National Environment Agency (NEA) - nears its 10th year, household participation rates have also slowed down.
It grew from an initial 15 per cent to 63 per cent by last year.
But for the past three years, it has remained stagnant. It has grown by less than 10 percentage points since 2004, when the participation rate was 54 per cent.
‘Public participation has always been the missing link. We can spend on recycling infrastructure and put bins everywhere, but if the people don’t use them, then there is no point,’ said Mr Shaw.
Why can’t Singaporeans do better?
For one thing, the chute makes it far too convenient for people to dispose of just about anything that would fit in there.
In a recent straw poll of 50 people conducted by The Sunday Times, the majority said that Singapore’s existing infrastructure does not encourage recycling.
The problems: lack of recycling bins, overflowing and contaminated bins, and infrequent collection, all of which were cited as key reasons why people do not recycle.
There are only two large, 660-litre bins for every five HDB blocks currently, making up a total of more than 1,600 recycling bins in HDB housing estates.
Residents and public waste collectors also complain that bins are often soiled. When that happens, nothing in the bin can be recycled.
Some also say the bins are located too far away, and this makes it inconvenient for them to lug recyclables to their locations.
Mr Shaw recalled that it was not always like this.
‘In the earlier days, the karung guni (rag-and-bone) men were an effective recycling system and there were many of them,’ he said.
But as Singapore developed, the ‘karung guni network’ declined and recycling in the 1980s and1990s ‘reached an all-time low’, he added.
It was not until 2001, when the National Recycling Programme was introduced, that Singapore had an established recycling system.
The NEA appointed public waste collectors who collect the recyclables on a scheduled day every fortnight for HDB estates and landed homes.
That too, is not enough, say residents.
Public education is key to getting more people to recycle.
Social media consultant Daphne Maia Loo, 27, said: ‘If you want people to keep up with it, you need to look into making recycling accessible for people, and continually educating them.’
Marketer and writer Desiree Koh, 33, agreed, likening the habit to belting up in a car. ‘Just like wearing seat belts, recycling needs to become a way of life and part of our culture. Nobody wanted to wear seat belts when they first started appearing in cars, and now it’s hard to fathom not strapping them on,’ she said.
Some, such as Mr Eugene Tay, director of consultancy Green Future Solutions, even expressed doubt about NEA’s 63 per cent participation figure.
‘I look around my own estate in Bedok, and I see at most two or three in 10 households recycling. There is still some way to go in educating residents. Some don’t know what the recycling bag is for, or are not even aware of the programme,’ noted Mr Tay.
Former Nominated MP and chief executive of waste-to-energy firm IUT Global Edwin Khew said there is just not enough infrastructure to promote recycling.
‘We still generate a huge amount of waste which we incinerate and goes to our landfill. It’s the only one we’ve got and it’s not going to last us more than 30 to 35 years, unless we do something about it,’ he said.
If incineration fees are low - which they are, compared with that in other countries - there is really no incentive to recycle, he said.
‘What we need are laws and regulation to force people to recycle. Waiting will be futile,’ he said.
The process: From collection to compression
Landed homes: Attendants from Veolia Environmental Services go door to door to collect yellow and blue recycling bags from landed homes in Jalan Sinar Bintang, from 8am to 5pm.
Veolia is the appointed public waste collector for the Pasir Ris-Tampines, Bedok and Tanglin-Bukit Merah sectors.
Collection is done via co-mingling, or mixing the recyclables in a common bag or bin. They will then have to be sorted into, for example, different grades of plastic and paper.
Residents often do not seem to know the difference between recyclables and reusables. Mr Ismail Wahab, 35, who has been on the job for 10 years, said residents have tried to dispose of furniture. When he tells them his truck cannot take such items, they have even offered him cash at times.
Loading: The attendants move on to the recycling bins at HDB estates in Pasir Ris Street 52. One problem they face every day - finding non-recyclable or food waste amid the recyclables.
Among the items found: flip flops, floppy disks, shoes, socks and even a handbag. The attendants simply load everything into the truck, to be sorted out later at its material recovery facility in Tuas. ‘We often find a lot of the recyclables placed around the bin, instead of inside it. We also have to spend a lot of time clearing food waste around the bin,’ said field inspector Abdul Karim Ali, 35. Food waste creates an even bigger problem - it contaminates the recyclables, turning them into literal waste.
Recovery facility: The truck then heads to Veolia’s material recovery facility in Tuas. It delivers its load after being weighed.
Up to 20 per cent of the recyclables collected can be contaminated, said Veolia’s Singapore operations manager Mathieu Davy. Entire truckloads have been rejected before. Rejected recyclables end up being incinerated.
‘It’s important that each resident plays his part,’ stressed Mr Davy. If you have 99 residents playing the game and putting their material in the correct bin and one person putting food inside, it will contaminate the whole bin.’
The bags are manually opened and their contents placed on a conveyor belt to be sorted by machine, magnets and workers. The recyclables are first sorted by size, with small ferrous metals and fine glass extracted by magnets and an air separator. The remainder is manually sorted.
Sorting by hand: Between eight and 10 workers in a cabin sort the remaining recyclables by hand, dropping them into seven open-top containers.
They are sorted into containers for PET bottles, HDPE bottles, mixed plastic, paper, glass, ferrous metals and aluminium. This is to ensure the quality of the reprocessed material, as different kinds of plastic or paper have different physical properties.
The glass is also sorted into clear green and amber glass, as glass retains its colour after recycling.
The remaining recyclables, which include tin and aluminium cans as well as non-recyclables, are further sorted by machines and magnets, ending up in other open-top containers.
A new use: The sorted recyclables are then compressed by machines into bales weighing 300kg to 400kg each. Some weigh as much as 1.2 tonnes.
They are then shipped as secondary raw materials to glass recycling factories, paper mills and the like, in destinations all over the region.
The value varies according to the type of material. Glass fetches $30 to $40 a tonne; aluminium, more than $1,000 a tonne.
Veolia’s country manager Jerome Baco said: ‘We are an environmental company, so we cannot afford to be picky at all. A recycling programme is there to recycle everything that is recyclable.’
Discarded items often of no value
Public waste collectors do not have an enviable job. First, they have to collect the waste.
Then comes another headache: People simply are not recycling properly.
Recyclables are often contaminated with food waste, and residents often try to recycle things that are reusable.
At the sorting plant of public waste collector Veolia, old handbags, shoes and even stuffed toys make their way down the sorting line. All must be thrown out.
Contamination is also an issue. Veolia operations manager Matthieu Davy cited an example of a private condominium where separate chutes for recyclables had been installed on every floor.
He said: ‘How much more convenient can you get? But for the first few months, all the recyclables were rejected because they were contaminated.’
The situation improved after Veolia officers were deployed to help educate residents with stickers and posters.
Smaller recycling firms which collect from condos, too, bear a big burden.
Ace Recycling, which collects recyclables from more than 200 condos, said a lot of waste it collects gets contaminated by food or general rubbish and has to be incinerated instead.
Things that can be recycled are sorted out by a combination of machinery and manual labour.
Its manager, Mr Stanley Peh, said the top three items households recycle are paper, plastic and glass.
‘Sometimes, the quantity and quality of recyclable items from the condos are of low or no value, and not enough to offset our operational costs,’ he said.
In those situations, Ace negotiates a fee from the condo management for the collection of recyclables.
Over the past three years, however, Ace has noticed a slight increase - about 5 per cent - in the quantity of items recycled.
‘Residents need more education on what can be recycled - it’s not just a dumping ground for unwanted items,’ he said.
Veolia, which has its own plant to collect and sort recyclables, says that the sale of recyclable materials does not cover the operating costs of its plant.
That is because it does not collect a high enough volume of uncontaminated recyclables, which it sells to firms which process them into recycled materials.
Veolia country manager Jerome Baco explained that it covers costs with waste collection fees.
But he is hopeful, noting that more Singaporeans are concerned about environmental issues.
‘I think we can be fairly optimistic about the future improvement of recycling in Singapore,’ he said.
People like housewife Lim Chou Kang, 65, are reason for recycling firms to have hope.
Madam Lim, who has been recycling for a decade, fills up to four recycling bags every fortnight.
She quipped: ‘One bin is not enough for me.’
What is more, things are about to change, as the frequency of recyclable waste collection goes up from next July.
As part of the requirements of an NEA tender exercise in July for waste collection in the Pasir Ris- Tampines sector, landed homes will have their recyclables collected weekly, while Housing Board flats will have theirs collected daily, instead of fortnightly.
HDB blocks will also get a recycling bin each, instead of the current two large, 660-litre bins for every five HDB blocks. Landed properties will each get a bin too.
The seven-year contract is expected to set a precedent for future public waste collection contracts in Singapore.
