Good management of waste has been crucial to Singapore, given its small land area and high density of built up living quarters. It is important that Singapore remains on the forefront of this industry to ensure that it can efficiently handle the increasing amount of solid waste, a staggering 30% rise in the last five years.
The article mentions that Singapore is lagging behind in productivity. The high rise, high desnity house maybe a reason for this inefficiency. Take one key initiative of the National Recycling Program where there a door to door collection of recyclables once every fortnight. Given that Singapore’s dense housing system, this is labour intensive operations, which may result in a lower productivity.
However, the article did not mention the forward thinking steps that have been taken to combat this problem. In order to reduce manpower to collate recyclables, 16 housing projects have undergone installation of separate recycling chutes. These chutes facilitate residents to directly dispose of recyclable waste, allowing workers to collect these the recyclables more efficiently compared to the prior method.
Furthermore, these built in chutes at their doorsteps allows for greater ease for to the residents in their recycling efforts. These will target one of the key problems mentioned in the article, a lack of public participation resulting in plastic and food being incinerated. In pilot project conducted over a year, the housing estate with the new chutes recycled three times more compared to one that did not have this new installation
The article hints that in order to have better waste management, the nation must increase use new technologies as well as increase productivity. The government has acknowledge this need, and five million dollars was invested into a Singapore workforce Skills Qualifications programme for the industry. It aims to