Number of litter bugs issued CWO up nine-fold in past
two years
SINGAPORE: The number of litterbugs caught has been on the
rise over the last two years. As of end November, over 1,050
offenders have been issued with Corrective Work Orders (CWO) so far
this year.
If not for Sunday morning's downpour, littering offenders would've
had to serve out their Corrective Work Orders amid the full glare
of the media. They'd all been caught littering more than
once.
But since the rain didn't stop, their CWO session had to be
postponed.
Since 2006, the number of litterbugs caught has gone up
significantly.
In the first 11 months of this year alone, 30,200 tickets for
littering were issued.
This is in part due to stepped-up enforcement by the National
Environment Agency.
In the last two years, it's increased time spent on enforcement by
3.5 times to 322 man hours per day.
Consequently, the number of CWOs meted out over the same period has
also gone up nine-fold to 1,052 as of last month.
In 2006, only 122 offenders were issued with CWOs.
Tai Ji Choong, head, Operations, Environmental Health Department,
National Environment Agency, said: "CWO has up till now still been
effective because the number of repeat offenders has remained low
and fairly consistent over the years. In fact, for the last five
years, repeat offenders have not exceeded three per cent."
Over 60 per cent of offenders are young people below the age of
30.
S$37 million of taxpayers’ money is spent each year cleaning the
streets. - CNA/vm