Ang Wei An James (FASS), Lim Zhi Zhong Walter (FoS), Shawn Lim Hui Siang (FASS), Tan Yong Jia (FoS), Terence Chou Jun Xiang (FoE)
Academic Advisor: Ms. Sadaf Ansari
GEQ Group 27 AY2015/16 identified an interesting point regarding the role of convenience in promoting recycling habits in their project. As an extension of their idea, we seek to investigate if the converse would be true: would increasing the difficulty of disposing unsorted general waste encourage the act of recycling? Thus, our team is investigating the correlation between recycling and convenience during specific time windows. Additionally, we are looking into contamination rates of the recycling bins before and after our investigation. We will be carrying out our pilot study at one of the Blocks at Ridge View Residential College (RVRC) to check if raising awareness can contribute to a reduction in contamination and an increase in recycling rates. Keeping in line with RVRC’s vision of sustainability, our goal is to cultivate better recycling habits among residents. These habits, and the methods used to cultivate them, possess the potential to be scaled up in the future to include the rest of Singapore, fostering a positive culture of being proactive when it comes to recycling. In a nutshell, we feel that there is room for improvement when it comes to recycling. Rethinking and recalibrating the current methods in place, we intend to begin by centralising general unsorted waste disposal and revising existing recycling practices if required.
Keywords: Culture and Lifestyle Trends, Responsible Consumption, Recycling, Waste sorting