I’ve travelled to Seoul and Taipei, two cities that significantly raised my awareness of how lacking we were in this aspect.
In Seoul, I saw that every residential estate has a waste collection point. Residents must sort their waste and throw it into categorised bins – general waste, plastic, glass, paper, metal, even food waste. This encourages them to actively recycle their waste. In Taipei, whenever I saw a rubbish bin, there would almost always be a recycling bin beside it. This encourages citizens to think about whether something can be recycled before throwing it away.
Waste Collection Area in residential estates in Seoul[2]
Recycling + Trash Bins along the streets of Taipei[3]
After travelling to those countries, I was quite furious. Although it’s just about recycling, their infrastructure enables their citizens to play their part in managing waste. I remember about five years ago, we were just trying to get people to return their trays to designated collection points. Blue recycling bins were not commonplace, and there were only a few posters in hawker centres telling us to only order what we can finish. We are such a developed country, introducing ourselves as A City in A Garden, but we cannot manage our trash well. We waste as if the area of Pulau Semakau is as big as Russia.
Fast forward to today. In part due to the immense focus on environmental sustainability, the importance of reducing waste has been greatly emphasised on. The Zero-Waste Masterplan aims to achieve that goal with a circular-economy approach via infrastructure, procedures, and even legislation such as the newly-enacted Resource Sustainability Act.[1]
Summary of the Zero-Waste Masterplan[4]
The Circular-Economy Approach as set out in the Zero-Waste Masterplan[1]
One area I want to focus on is packaging, which makes up a huge part of the unnecessary waste we generate. While some things, such as food items, cannot do without packaging[5], I believe some items can. I came across this video[6] last year and it’s been in my mind ever since. It’s true, why are things packaged the way they are and why do we need packaging that serves essentially no purpose?
Own image – A Box in a Box
With the rise of online shopping, more resources are used to protect the items during delivery. Why do we need a box in another box? That’s one more box to throw away.
The introduced mandatory reporting of packaging data in the Zero-Waste Masterplan[1] can be a way to encourage companies to cut away unnecessary packaging (like toothpaste boxes), but we as consumers must change our habits too. Before we press “check-out” on our screens, think again. Do we need to buy the item online? After all, if we do not order an extra box, there won’t be an extra box to waste.
SDG12: Responsible Consumption and Production
References:
[1] Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources. (2019). Zero Waste Masterplan Singapore. (Images reproduced with permission from Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment)
[2] Lee, S., & Paik, H. S. (2011). Korean household waste management and recycling behavior. Building and Environment, 46(5), 1159-1166. doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2010.12.005 Image reproduced with permission.
[3] “#1716 recycle bins” by Nemo’s great uncle is licensed with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
[4] Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources. (2019). Zero Waste Masterplan Summary. (Image reproduced with permission from Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment)
[5] Elangovan, N. (2020, April 15). Singaporeans generated less waste in 2019, but also recycled less: NEA. TODAY Singapore. Retrieved September 3, 2020, from https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/singaporeans-generated-less-waste-2019-also-recycled-less-nea
[6] Alan’s Theory. (2018, December 26). Why Toothpaste Comes in a Box. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcnAYdrV074
Hi Ernest,
The problem is plastic. Even if it’s perfectly clean and properly sorted and binned, most won’t get recycled because it’s just not economically profitable. And the problem is worse now that China stopped accepting plastic waste.
The tooth powder and all zero waste products that I’ve purchased either come packaging free (e.g., soap, shampoo bars) or in compostable packaging (deodorant, dental floss, tea bags) or in glass. That’s the case with the tooth powder. It comes in a glass jar. And glass isn’t made from fossil fuels and isn’t an environmental pollutant. Plus, it’s way more easily recycled. I’ve also seen tooth tabs, which I decided against because you only get a few dozen in 1 aluminium container – I can brush my teeth for 4 months using the powder in 1 glass jar. One of your seniors, Audrey, actually makes her own tooth powder – I could go that route too, I guess.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2018/10/5-recycling-myths-busted-plastic/
Nothing’s perfect, but my personal zero-waste journey focuses on drastically curbing my consumption of plastic.
Hi Dr Coleman, thanks for your reply! Perhaps I’m not that aware of the recycling situation and did not know it’s not as profitable, so thanks for highlighting! Also, knowing about toothpaste powder, that’s really interesting. Not sure if I’ll do that in my own journey of reducing waste though 🙂 haha
Hi all,
Mind if I add something to the discussion ?
Regarding Li Zhe’s Q and your reply… I respectfully suggest that living in SG, you’ve become so accustomed to the notion of produce sold in packaging that to you, it seems necessary. But pls understand that for many ppl, this notion is hard to understand. For instance, in most Canadian grocery stores, most of the produce (except for things like berries or other things that really need to be contained) is sold without packaging. Before I moved to Qatar, I had never even seen broccoli or cucumbers, etc. sold in a package. And this isn’t because it’s being grown nearby. Many supermarkets in Europe are banning packaging altogether. So, I guess I think this is more of a paradigm shift akin to what the video proposes with respect to toothpaste boxes.
Regarding Wen Han’s Q and your reply… I wonder why, given evidence that the vast majority of plastics that are properly segregated in recycling bins ultimately don’t get recycled (for various reasons), so many people still think recycling is any kind of solution.
Finally, thought you might be interested to know that I don’t use toothpaste at all. My biggest, recent zero-waste-journey step (which I took last year and roped in some of your seniors to try it) was switching to tooth powder. I’ll admit that it was vile at first and I thought I’d fail at keeping it up. But after a couple of weeks, I got used to it. Now, I actually kind of like it. And when my husband’s toothpaste ran out a month ago, he switched too (also despised it at first). You just have to be willing to endure several days of feeling like you’re brushing with mint flavoured dirt. And this is a lot like many of the steps I’ve taken – tough at first but they quickly become a habit I end up preferring either because they save me $$ or time or they just work better.
jc
Hi Dr Coleman, thanks for your comment! I was not aware of how food is (not) packaged in Canada so it sure is a new insight. Seeing that it is done elsewhere, I certainly do think then that there is a possibility of moving away from packaging for food products. Singapore still has a long way to go in becoming more environmentally-conscious and learning from other countries is a good way of improving our policies and way of life.
For recycling, as you mentioned there are many reasons as to why some plastics don’t get recycled. One main reason is food contamination, which renders a whole batch of waste unrecyclable. It is hence important that people know what can and cannot be recycled, and to not treat the blue bins as trash bins. Thus, in my opinion, recycling can be a solution to turn waste into something useful (subject to the current technology, of course). However, people must be aware of what can be recycled and take proper action in the handling of their waste before recycling it, for example, rinsing their bottles.
About your toothpaste experience, that’s an interesting sharing! Not to discourage your use of toothpaste powder though, but I’m curious as to how it reduces waste, considering it requires a package to contain the powder as well.
Hi Ernest, packaging waste is truly such a waste😉. I honestly do not think with the way our society is currently structured, we can do away with packaging. An example would be supermarkets, with the specialisation of work and the extinction of subsistence farming in urban cities, food like vegetables are produced elsewhere and thus packaging serves as a protective barrier to the goods. Yet do you think by bringing farms closer to urban areas. Could this be a possible solution to shorten the distance from farm to plate?
Hi Li Zhe, thanks for your question! As you mentioned, the packaging for food serves as a protective barrier, whether to protect the food or to maintain hygiene during the handling of food. By bringing farms closer to urban areas, it will definitely shorten the distance from farm to fork.
If you are talking about whether bringing farms closer will have any impact on packaging, I do not think that it will reduce the use of packaging. This is because if the farm produce is being delivered and sold in supermarkets, then the same concept will apply. Packaging will still be needed as a protective barrier for the reasons stated above. However, if there were to be a farmers’ market or a retail option at the farm itself where people can visit the farm to buy the produce directly from the farm, then this will minimise the handling of the product and can therefore be a possible solution to reduce packaging.
Hope that answers your question!
Hi Ernest, Wen Han here! This post is very eye-opening in areas like reducing wastage of resources by using just one layer of packaging rather than two. However, I find the presence of recycling bins contributing to lesser wastage and higher recycling rates rather subjective depending on different countries. In Japan’s context, the locals are fervent supporters of recycling and recycling bins do dot the neighbourhood. However nationally, they seem to have a rather low recycling rate despite that.
Therefore, my question would be, ‘Do you feel that increased presence of recycling bins or increased public awareness more important in the context of day-to-day recycling?’
Hi Wen Han, thanks for your comment! I strongly believe that both must occur to improve the situation. On the one hand, agencies must provide for the proper infrastructure to allow citizens to play their part, in this case, recycling. On the other hand, citizens must have the awareness and habit of recycling into bins that are already provided for them. So if I had to choose one, I would say that at the current juncture, it is more important to increase public awareness and cultivate the habit of recycling daily. Hope that answers your question and gives you a glimpse into my thought process!