Push for tray return to start at 9 food
centres
By Tan Qiuyi | Posted: 03
November 2012 1251 hrs
SINGAPORE: A renewed push to get patrons to clear
their own trays will kick off with a first batch of nine hawker
centres from this month.
The hawker centre at Block 726 Clementi West Street 2 will be the
first to start the tray return initiative on 11 November.
The other food centres -- North Bridge Road Food Centre, Zion
Riverside Food Centre, Tiong Bahru Market, Kallang Estate Food
Centre, Block 137 Tampines Street 24, Block 628 Ang Mo Kio Avenue
4, Block 16 Bedok South, and Block 254 Jurong East Street 24 --
will follow over the next three months.
Authorities said the move is an effort towards building a more
gracious society in Singapore.
Dirty dishes left on the tables are a common sight at food centres
all over the country.
But there is a possibility of change to come -- at least at nine
hawker centres. These include popular ones in the city, as well as
several others in the heartlands in the western, northern and
eastern parts of the island.
Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Dr Vivian
Balakrishnan, made the announcement at the launch of the Clean and
Green 2013 campaign on Saturday.
He said: "The objective is to make tray return a default, to make
it something which we all do out of habit, and to ensure that peer
pressure always exists to keep us all doing the right thing."
One way to make it work, said Dr Balakrishnan, is to have
tray-return facilities at all food centres.
The National Environment Agency said food centres will be
retrofitted with facilities designed to make it convenient for
customers to deposit their trays -- for example, racks and trolleys
that can take different tray sizes and stacked crockery.
There have been several tray-return campaigns in the past, but
these have not really taken off.
Dr Balakrishnan said it is not just about having the right
infrastructure to make tray return convenient and easy -- what is
needed here is a mindset change.
"It's not just about being clean in a sterile sense of the word,
but clean because it reflects us, our values, our consideration for
each other, our responsibility and stewardship of the environment,
of our homes and the environment outside our homes," he
added.
"It will be ingrained as part and parcel of our habits, it's
something we do in schools, it's something we do in national
service, it's something we do in our hawker centres, it's something
we do at home. This becomes part and parcel of our way of life --
that's really what we're trying to achieve."
Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said: "I echo minister
Vivian Balakrishnan's call that Singapore needs to turn from a
"cleaned city" into a "clean city".
He added that every individual here -- citizens, transient workers,
even the tourists -- should play his or her part to exercise
graciousness and consideration.
The tray-return campaign is expected to roll out to all 107 food
centres in Singapore over the next two years.
- CNA/al
