Julian Chua Au Tze (FOS), Brandon Chia Wei Zhe (FOS), Jerald Tan Chun Sing (FOS), Kaaviya Selvam (FOS), Goh Meng Chun (FOS)
Academic Advisor: Dr. Chua Siew Chin
In Singapore, only 4% of plastic is recycled (NEA, 2020), largely due to plastic contamination and inappropriate plastics in bins. Our project chose to focus on the latter. Our preliminary data showed that 81% (n=72) of RVRC residents were aware of proper recycling habits. However, our recycling bins contained large amount of unrecyclable materials, rendering items in the bins unrecyclable. Our solution aims to reduce inappropriate and non-recyclable plastics in our plastic recycling bins, which would in turn increase the success rate of plastic recycling in RVRC. We created a prototype bin which had a deterrence layer to reduce disposal of inappropriate plastics, and a filter that had a 98% success rate of retaining larger plastics, while eliminating smaller unrecyclable plastics. This was supplemented with posters with clear messages to remind people of recycling etiquette. Hence, we believe that our prototype can increase the number of recyclable batches of plastic.