Singapore Sustainability: Waste Management
Alex Houck
GGo
02/02/2018
Word count: 1368
Waste management is undoubtedly an issue in every country in the world. Disposing of things that aren’t needed anymore always is troublesome because it needs somewhere to go, and that couldn’t be truer for Singapore. With the very dense population in addition to the fact that it is the nineteenth smallest country in the world with only 719 square kilometers of land mass, it is no surprise that it is an issue in Singapore. In my essay, I will be covering the government’s approach to this issue, problems that arise with these solutions, give perspectives of the government, citizens, and others on this issue, as well as give my own opinion on this problem.
The cause of this issue, as mentioned before, is largely due to the extremely small land mass of only 719 kilometers squared, but also due to the extremely high population density. Singapore’s population density is the third highest in the world, with 8295 people per square kilometer. The second most amount of unrecycled waste that Singapore generates per year is from thrown out food in Singaporean households. In a study done by the NEA (National Environment Agency), 443 households were surveyed over 5 months, and it was concluded that in the average Singaporean household, about 2.5 kg of food per week is wasted. This means that in a year, the average household will waste 130 kg of food, resulting in an enormous amount of waste coming from food waste alone. In 2016 alone, it was calculated that the total food waste generated in Singapore was a staggering 791000 metric tons, which is a figure that continues to increase. In the past 10 years alone, the amount of food waste produced has increased by 40% from the original figure. This output of waste results in there being great difficulty in disposing of all of the trash from around the island. This high population density also results in people in less developed neighborhoods having to manually move their trash to other places where they can be disposed of because of the lack of space for it in their usual place of disposal. This is most often due to the inefficiency of moving the waste to other places. One academic living in Singapore who is under these circumstances, Sarah Moser, says that “we end up storing tons of stuff… Then we have to do a huge big binge trip, and we’re so embarrassed because the guards are watching us.” This very well illustrates the problems that arise with Singapore’s waste disposal.
So where is all of it going? Surely all of this waste generated has to go somewhere. Most solid waste is sent to the Tuas south incineration plant, located on the main island, where it is incinerated by Singapore’s four incinerators. Incineration is a somewhat environmentally viable option due to the fact that incineration can reduce solid waste’s mass by around 90%. The amount of trash burned daily in the main Tuas south incinerator is around 3000 tons per day, which sounds like an efficient way to get rid of most of the waste, but it still needs to be considered that this incineration releases a lot of harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Even after incineration, waste is left over must be sent to a landfill. Singapore only has one landfill which is located on reclaimed land offshore, with the last mainland landfill closing in 1999. This landfill is known as Pulau Semakau and takes in around 2000 tons of incinerated trash a day, which accounts for 93% of Singapore’s solid waste. As the general manager of Pulau Semakau says, “It is very costly to get rid of our waste.” Pulau Semakau cost around 610 million dollars total to build, and, as all landfills are, is certainly not sustainable. It is estimated that every 25 to 30 years a new landfill will be needed for the excessive amounts of trash that is produced, and it is also estimated that Pulau Semakau will fill by around 2040. What’s more is that each incinerator will need to be replaced every 5 to 7 years which is even more millions of dollars spent unsustainably. This is increasingly problematic when it is taken into consideration that the amount of solid waste generated this year was 140700 tons greater than last year, and this has been a figure that has increased as time has gone on.
The government’s main approach towards this issue has mostly been through the NEA or National Environment Agency which has helped with much of the improvements that have been made to Singapore’s environmental impact. The NEA has put heavy restrictions on where smoking is allowed, banning public places such as parks, taxis, shopping centers, reservoirs, and many more places in an effort to cut down on the number of cigarettes littered in Singapore. One of the NEA’s largest impacts on Singapore’s appointment of 4 public waste collectors, Sembawaste, Veolia ES, Colex, and 800 Super, which all must follow Singapore’s guidelines on how the government believes waste should be managed. These guidelines include not having any environment-related convictions, having at least 3 million SGD in capital that they can use, having a net worth of at least 3 million SGD, and must have provided waste collection/disposal to a community of at least 150000 people.
The government is not the only group of people to try to help with waste disposal in Singapore. One NGO called Tzu Chi Singapore is a Buddhist organization that is involved in a total of 90 nations worldwide. Their mission includes “Charity, Medicine, Education, and Humanistic Culture, Bone Marrow Donation, International Relief, Environmental Protection, and Community Volunteerism.” Tzu Chi has over 10000 recycling stations worldwide, with 39 in Singapore. They first started operating in Singapore in 1999, at around the same time as the last mainland landfill was closed when they set up Singapore’s first Tzu Chi recycling center in Jurong East. Tzu Chi has around 1000 volunteers per month, and through their efforts, collected 451235 paper recyclables in 2016. This NGO also helps raise awareness about saving the environment, with an environmental center located in Woodlands, which is also Singapore’s only recycling center that operates six days a week and is open to the public.
In my opinion, Singapore’s main problem stems from the excessive amount of food waste produced by its population. In my opinion, the way to reduce the enormous amount of food waste would be to either put an indirect tax on the food to increase the overall price of food, or to increase taxes put on imports which would make food more scarce. This would, in turn, cause less overall consumption of food, meaning that the demand for food will decrease leading to a smaller quantity of food waste produced. However, this would also have to be closely monitored because it could also result in a greater rate of inflation and also cause people with lower incomes to go into poverty because they have to spend more on food than before. In terms of waste disposal, the current method is excellent for the short term, but not for the long term. While the incineration greatly reduces the mass of the solid waste, putting it in a landfill is not a sustainable solution. The best solution would be to encourage recycling, because, as mentioned before, all of the waste needs to go somewhere. One way to do this would be to offer some kind of rewards system for a certain amount of trash that is recycled.
In conclusion, I think that Singapore is a relatively sustainable country in terms of its waste management but still has a flawed system. It has problems that stem from the small amount of land, very high population density, and a lack of efficiency in terms of waste disposal. I think that it could certainly be improved through methods such as taxation and reward systems, and that recycling is absolutely necessary. Researching this topic has made me think more about how waste is managed in Singapore which I had scarcely thought about before, as well as how important it is to recycle in order to build towards a sustainable future.
Bibliography
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