Hello Prof and friends!
How many of us are guilty of online shopping out of pure boredom and/or ordering from food delivery platforms during circuit breaker? Those hours cooped up at home, scrolling through Zalora or Shopee, promotions after promotions.
Well, it turns out that almost every household in Singapore was guilty of succumbing to their impulses as there has been a recorded increase in local general waste! To be specific, there was an 11 percent increase from 66 tonnes in March, to 73 tonnes in April, according to the National Environment Agency (NEA) (Liu, 2020). Households produced an extra 1,334 tonnes of plastic waste – especially disposable cutleries – during the circuit breaker period (Elangovan, 2020). If we were to visualize this, it would be comparable to the weight of 92 double-decker buses! (Low & Koh, 2020) 😱 This can be attributed to the whopping 73 percent surge in food delivery during the circuit breaker period, as we seek comfort in takeaways to get a taste of the outside world. Places of residence such as Housing Board flats and condominiums bear the bulk of this since industrial and recreational events have stopped (Phua, 2020).
Coupled with the pre-existing issue of low recycling rate of plastic waste and increase in waste generation, the pandemic has hampered efficient waste management as there were also fewer waste collectors (Liu, 2020). Compared to pre-pandemic, there was a 14 percent decrease in waste collectors as Malaysians were unable to work in Singapore during the lockdown. Collectively, this amounted to an exacerbation of general waste.
References
Elangovan, N. (2020). Singapore households generated additional 1,334 tonnes of plastic waste during circuit breaker. [online] Today Online. Available at: https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/singapore-households-generated-additional-1334-tonnes-plastic-waste-during-circuit-breaker
Liu, V. (2020). More trash in past month, but fewer waste collectors amid Covid-19 circuit breaker. [online] The Straits Times. Available at: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/more-trash-in-past-month-but-fewer-waste-collectors [Accessed 12 Sep. 2020].
Phua, R. (2020). COVID-19: Medical waste workers put in extra hours to handle extra volume. [online] CNA. Available at: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid-19-medical-waste-volume-up-worry-risk-workers-12621996 [Accessed 6 Sep. 2020].
Low, D.W. and Koh, A. (2020). Singapore’s Food Delivery Surge During Lockdown Highlights Waste Problems. [online] Bloomberg. Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-24/singapore-binges-on-plastics-ordering-food-during-virus-lockdown
Van, F.Y., Jiang, P., Hemzal, M. and Klemeš, J.J. (2020). An update of COVID-19 influence on waste management. Science of The Total Environment. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969720355431