Singapore is wasting away - why don't we seem to care?

YOU hear him first before you see him. The karung guni man, instantly recognisable by the honking of his horn, after all these years still collecting, re-using or re-selling our unwanted household goods. A true pioneer of recycling and someone we should celebrate and be inspired by as the original champion of living a more sustainable life. But have we really learned anything from the karung guni?

The uncomfortable truth is that we are facing a looming national waste disaster that will damage our island home forever unless we all do something about it. Put simply, we all throw away too much, and despite the best efforts of government, businesses and others, we are not changing our habits. The statistics speak for themselves: according to the National Environment Agency's latest waste statistics, in Singapore, in 2016 alone, we generated over two million tonnes of household waste, or around 5,000 tonnes of waste per day, enough to fill about 14 Olympic-sized swimming pools. At the same time, our household recycling rate has stagnated at around 20 per cent, meaning we only recycle one fifth of the household waste we produce.

If we do not address this, and quickly, according to Singapore's Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, the country's only landfill site at Pulau Semakau will run out of space in less than 20 years - so by 2035 there will literally be nowhere else for our waste to go. This means the waters around our island will become increasingly polluted, and our valued marine and wildlife will suffer and slowly die out. This will impact each and every one of us and our quality of life.