Do your letter box front have a trough?
Our estate is currently having the troughs made. This is part of
the town council's maintenance exercise. As the letterboxes are the
property of the town council, they could build the trough without
consulting the residents.
We the residents find the troughs demeaning.
The troughs are to contain flyers from flying about, thus making
the cleaners job of sweeping the area easier. OK, we accept that
reasoning.
But what does it do to our effort to bring about a more gracious
society.
It is a step backwards.
The majority of the residents in our estate are already civic
conscious. Most of them throw their junk flyers into the bin that
is less than 10 feet away. And more are doing so. There is however
a minority that do not bother to pick up a fallen piece of paper.
It is this minority that has to learn to keep their estate clean.
And the resident's committee education programe is doing that and
showing results.
Then all of a sudden this trough.
I already see crushed paper in there. Residents are throwing their
unwanted junk flyers into the trough. This undo the education
programme that was painstakingly undertaken and bearing
results.
Is the trough a proper receptacle for litter?
Why are we spoiling our people?
We are also indignant about the trough, because our estate is a
Design and Build project, and the residents there are mostly young
families.
And the troughs are very like third world. Very out of character
with our estate concept.
That aside, we also feel hapless, powerless.
The contractors came and built the trough.
No information, no consultation, no telling us.
Just like that, they made the trough.
We could do nothing.
The greatest obstacle to a gracious society in Singapore?
Sometimes its our government.