Environmental Pollution, particularly household pollution or pollution we face on a regular basis, is a common problem globally in today’s highly urbanised world. As such, many lessons can be learnt from the various approaches different countries take in the fight against pollution. Today’s article does a cross comparison of two countries with similar pollution profiles – Singapore and South Korea. Both these countries in the past have faced pollution from plastic and excessive waste, and occasionally experience air pollution in the form of haze events and fine dust pollution respectively. However, South Korea’s environmental success stems from a largely top-down approach while Singapore’s environmental movement has garnered new speed from an increasingly bottom-up takeover. 

 

South Korea’s Top-Down Approach:

The South Korean government has ramped up its efforts against pollution in the past few years. In 2019, it legally designated the problem as a “social disaster”, enabling the government to tap on its $2.65 billion emergency reserves to fund policies combating Korea’s fine dust pollution (Chung, 2019). Examples of such policies include a mandate for every school classroom to contain an air purifier, and a cap on the sales of vehicles that run on petroleum, and artificial rain experiments. Such an approach legitimizes the fight against air pollution that South Korean residents have to face regularly, and have great potential to eradicate this health hazard. 

 

Figure 1: South Korea’s mandatory recycling (Source: The Straits Times)

 

Another environmental success of South Korea is its recycling and waste management system. In 2013, the government launched a compulsory recycling scheme, that included food waste recycling and special biodegradable bags.

 

Figure 2; South Korea’s Recycling Bags (Source: Livinko)

 

On average, households pay $6 a month for these bags, which contributes to 60% of the scheme’s total running cost (Chang, 2016). Households are expected to separate plastics and food waste accordingly, placing them into their respective bags before the trash is collected at fixed hours (6pm to midnight). Should the separation be found to be incorrect, the bags can be returned to the household since their address is recorded on the bag. Violation of the rules also warrants a 1 million won fine. Smart bins across Seoul also weigh food waste automatically and charge residents on an ID card. This motivates residents to reduce the overall volume and hence weight of their food waste, by for instance, removing all moisture first (Broom, 2019). As reported in a 2017 government study, these measures have enabled South Korea to recycle more than 85% of its total waste (Global Recycling, 2019). 

 

Singapore’s Bottom-Up Approach:

This mandatory recycling scheme is a world away from Singapore’s recycling programmes. Recycling in Singapore is on a self-motivated basis, though NEA has launched multiple National Recycling Programmes. There is however, a healthy amount of skepticism surrounding the final end point of the recycle bin trash collected. Boh (2019) reports that often up to 40% of its contents are contaminated with items that are non-recyclable, rendering the entire collection useless while reflecting the lack of awareness and education amongst Singaporean residents towards recycling. Furthermore, most public housing apartments have rubbish chutes on each floor, greatly trumping the searching for recycling bins that most Singaporeans perceive as an inconvenience. All in all, this has rendered Singapore’s recycling rate to hover at around 20 percent since 2005. Unsatisfied with this number, environmental activists have recently capitalised on the growth of social media to promote and raise awareness regarding environmental issues like pollution. This movement has led to a surge of community based and the beginnings of a bottom up approach in combating Singapore’s pollution issue. Prominent activists that catalysed this movement, particularly among the youth in Singapore are the @theweirdandwild, @lilearthgirl, @byebyeplasticbags.sg and @nocarrierpls on Instagram; eventually leading to the formation of Singapore’s first ever autonomous Climate Rally in 2019. 

 

Figure 3: The Youth Organizers of Singapore’s first Climate Rally (Source: The Straits Times)

 

In a similar fashion, community action was also prevalent in Singapore’s response to the Southeast Asian Haze events it encounters annually. During the 2015 event, many members of the community began to boycott companies that were linked to the forest fires in Indonesia, catalysing a social movement that stopped support for such pollutive events (Baker, 2015). This garnered great traction and many independent groups were formed to further such boycotts, research and awareness campaigns, including the People’s Movement to Stop Haze (PM Haze). Top-down approaches by the Government to tackle the haze may be restricted by its transboundary nature, bilateral relationships and bureaucratic tape but community based approaches such as the above harness consumer power and attack the companies profit making margins, directly influencing their very motive to start such forest fires. This shows the growing importance and effectiveness of bottom-up approaches in Singapore, including their potential to tackle more and more environmental issues in the future. 

Overall, both approaches have their respective benefits and their effectiveness depends on cultural context. Both Singapore and South Korea demonstrate that be it through national or community self-motivated movements, greater awareness and education about the severe threat of pollution and waste is the first step to achieving social change. 

 

Author: Madeleine Shutler

 

References 

Baker, J., & Si. (2015, October 9). Many will boycott products from haze-causing firms: Poll. Retrieved July 23, 2020, from https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/many-will-boycott-products-from-haze-causing-firms-poll 

Boh, S. (2019, June 14). Singapore wants year of zero waste. But it’s rubbish at recycling. Retrieved July 23, 2020, from https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3014403/singapore-wants-year-zero-waste-its-rubbish-recycling 

Broom, D. (2019, April 12). South Korea once recycled 2% of its food waste. Now it recycles 95%. Retrieved July 23, 2020, from  https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/south-korea-recycling-food-waste/ 

Chang, M. (2016, April 23). Culture shock over South Korea’s mandatory recycling of food waste. Retrieved July 23, 2020, from https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/culture-shock-over-south-koreas-mandatory-recycling-of-food-waste 

Chung, J. (2019, March 13). South Korea steps up fight against pollution, says problem is ‘social disaster’. Retrieved July 23, 2020, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-pollution/south-korea-steps-up-fight-against-pollution-says-problem-is-social-disaster-idUSKBN1QU08E 

Global Recycling. (2019, September 19). South Korea: The Aim Is a Resource-Circulating Society. Retrieved July 23, 2020, from https://global-recycling.info/archives/3205