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I was having a conversation with my mum about my blog posts when it dawned upon me that not many people know the definition of a sustainable product. After discussions with some of my friends, the most common answer to a sustainable product would be that the product is recyclable or is made out of recycled materials (which is correct but does not encompass the entire definition of a sustainable product!).

The definite attributes of what makes a product sustainable is still being highly debated, however, I’ve managed to summarise the top 5 features in the chart above. 

I’ve decided to conduct a survey to learn more about people’s knowledge of sustainable products as well as opinions on its affordability in Singapore. After posting my survey on my social media accounts and sending it to every contact on my phone, I’ve managed to garner 77 responses in total! I was surprised to know that so many people took time out of their day to do my survey :”)

However, a large majority of the respondents are current students studying at the National University of Singapore (NUS), especially from the Bachelor of Environmental Studies (BES) course. Therefore, this survey might not be the most accurate representation of the general public’s view on sustainability in Singapore 🙁

Here are the results!

As I had predicted, the top response of 92.2% was that a sustainable product is made out of material that can be recycled, reused, and composted. In my opinion, this mostly accrues to the fact that many associate any environmental-related topic with recycling. Since most of the respondents are around the age range of 17-25 years old, many of us may have had a similar school experience when we were younger. In school, we were often informed and tasked to recycle, reduce, and reuse to ‘save the environment’. It was not common to learn other forms or methods to live a more sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyle. Therefore, this might have had a large influence on their answer towards the definition of a sustainable product!

However, the option of “use of ethical labour” and “no use of hazardous material or depletion of natural resources”  had the two lowest responses with 67.5% and 72.7% respectively. To be completely frank, I did not know that the usage of ethical labour was a key component of a sustainable product until recently! From my point of view, this is due to the fact that the term ethical labour is not usually associated with the environment but rather leaning more towards human-rights related issues. What do you think?

Stay tuned for the rest of my survey results next week! See you 🙂

 

Hello everyone! In this post, I would like to talk more about my personal struggle with finding affordable sustainable products in Singapore.

 I know for a fact that I have not been the most environmentally friendly version of myself. But why? The prices of eco-friendly and sustainable products are just too high for me! Living on a student budget has limited my purchasing power and restricted me from performing certain green practices.

Many who has a phone would own a phone case either for protection or decorative purposes. None of us would ever think such a small, sometimes even flimsy phone case would cause so much harm to our environment! However, more than 1.5 billion phone cases are discarded each year (Pela 360– Pela Case, n.d.), many of which are produced using plastic and synthetic leather! To make it worse, each buyer uses their phone case for an average of 22 months before getting a new phone, and thus, a new phone case (Dunn, 2017).

However, do not fret as more eco-friendly biodegradable phone cases are being sold worldwide. With the rise of phone cases that are 100% compostable and made out of sustainable material such as bamboo and cork, we can finally get our hands on them. But can we afford it? I can’t. Compostable phone cases range from USD40-60, which is much more expensive than regular plastic phone cases that sell for less than USD5. Which option would you choose?

In the context of Singapore, those from the lower socio-economic groups (in the bottom 20%), earn an average of SGD2235 (approx. USD1631) (Dept of Statistics, SG 2019). This may affect their ability to purchase such eco-friendly products, thus forced to purchase cheaper, non-sustainable products.

Let’s move on to another essential product in our lives. Toothbrushes! Can you believe that we discard our toothbrushes every 3-4 months? The constant replacement of toothbrushes accumulated to 23 billion toothbrushes being thrown out each year (Borunda, 2019)! Since most toothbrushes are made of plastic, they are mostly unrecyclable. But bamboo toothbrushes are an increasingly common sight here in Singapore.

 One of the biggest healthcare chains in Asia, Watsons is selling its bamboo toothbrushes for around SGD4.90 (approx. USD3.50). I understand that many might think that the price point is affordable, but a large oral company, Colgate which sells its plastic toothbrushes at the same price point is much more popular.  This makes us question whether there are other reasons why consumers are not choosing a more sustainable version. So, stay tuned to find out the answer next week!

Hello! I’m Amira, currently a year 1 Environmental Studies student from the National University of Singapore (NUS).

More about why I decided to join BES:

I have to admit that BES was not on my mind growing up and I genuinely did not know about BES until I was reading through the NUS pamphlet. However, once I researched more about the course, I soon realized it was the perfect course for me! I have been interested in animals since I was in kindergarten. I’ve watched countless animal documentaries and my favourite would be “Meet the sloths”. Unlike other children who might ask for games or toys for their birthdays, I would always ask for a trip to the zoo or the sea aquarium. To this day, I would still visit the zoo and even volunteered at the Singapore Zoo during my school holidays in 2019.

Another factor contributing to my decision towards BES was my interest in recycling. My family has been greatly affected by this as I would always nag at them whenever they would throw away something that could be recycled. It went to the extent of me sending a list of things that could recycled according to the National Environment Agency (NEA) to my family group chat. I am also grateful to my parents for being responsive towards the Bring Your Own (BYO) movement where we started bringing our reusable bags whenever we go grocery shopping!

More about myself:

A fun fact about myself is that I’ve played netball for almost 12 years and counting (more than half my life!). I’ve also picked up floorball when I was in Junior College! After reading that, I would assume that you may think I love exercising – but I dread anything that involves running. My other interests include online shopping and cooking! There are countless items in my Wishlist on every online shopping website :’) The highest number of packages that I have received in one day is 6! Apart from online shopping, I enjoy cooking my meals (baking too!). I guess it would be safe to say that I spend more time in my kitchen rather than in my room at home! My top three dishes to cook are mushroom soup, spinach alfredo pizza, and shrimp fried rice. Not trying to brag but my family members will physically fight over my egg tarts and banana bread :”)

You must be wondering what my blog would be about! Is it worth it? Well, my blog would be about the affordability of a sustainable lifestyle in Singapore! After I started managing my own finances, I’ve come to realize how expensive sustainable products are in Singapore. More about this in the next blogs to come 🙂 Stay tuned every Friday!