Grace Chua from the Straits Times wrote an article yesterday
on Recycling: Time to get our act together. She
suggested some laws and improvements to increase the recycling
efforts of households and businesses.
Before considering her suggestions for households, I would suggest
that the National Environment Agency (NEA) explore simple and
cost-effective ways to maximise the use of our existing recycling
infrastructure, which often is underutilised or misused.
The National Recycling Programme (NRP) has been implemented at HDB
estates and landed properties since 2001, where residents are given
either recycling bags or bins for recyclables, which are collected
once every 2 weeks from their doorsteps. With the NRP, households
can recycle conveniently and do not even have to walk downstairs to
the nearest recycling bin or walk out of their house to the chutes
to recycle. Households can also make use of the recycling bins near
their flats since there are one set of recycling bins for every
five blocks of flats.
For households in condominiums and private apartments, they can
recycle through the recycling programme at their residence as it is
mandatory from 2008 for all condominiums and private apartments to
put in place recycling programmes.
With the existing recycling infrastructure, the NEA should aim to
maximise its usage and tweak it to increase recycling, before
deciding to implement new laws, place more bins or add more
separate chutes system, which is likely to increase business costs
and be passed on to the residents.
To make full use of the existing recycling infrastructure, the NEA
could study simple and cost-effective ways to “nudge” households
and increase recycling participation. In the book, Switch: How to
Change Things When Change is Hard, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, the
authors pointed out two common misconceptions on change, which we
can adapt to help increase recycling.
One, “what looks like resistance is often a lack of clarity”. We
need to provide crystal-clear direction to the households on the
recycling programme. Some questions to ask: Are the households
aware or clear about the NRP in terms of why there is a need to
have the programme; how the programme works; what items can be
recycled; how the collection is done; how frequent is the
collection, and where the recyclables end up? Can we appoint
volunteer recycling ambassadors or guides to help the residents?
Can we use more mass media and social media to explain the
recycling programme and spread the message?
Two, “what looks like a people problem is often a situation
problem”. We need to make it easier for the households to recycle
by tweaking the existing recycling infrastructure. Some questions
to ask: How to make it easier for households to remember the
recycling dates; identify what items can be recycled; and find the
nearest recycling bin? Can we place a reminder on each rubbish bin
and chute to remind residents to recycle? Can we provide data for
comparing recycling performance for each estate or block? Can we
use social media and smartphone apps to remind residents on their
recycling collection dates? Can we place better images of
recyclables on the recycling bags or bins to show clearly what
items are recyclable?
The NEA should study simple and cost-effective ways before
implementing new laws, bins or systems whose increased costs could
be borne by the residents.
Besides recycling, it is also important to focus more on reduce and
reuse. There is a sequence to the widely known 3Rs – Reduce, Reuse
and Recycle. “Reduce” should always be practised first to minimise
or prevent the waste from being generated in the beginning. Next,
“Reuse” the generated waste over again for the same or different
purpose. Lastly, “Recycle” the waste so that it can be processed
and used as a new material. Recycling still involves energy and
resources to process the used material, and should be done
last.
An edited version was published at ST Forum
Online.