Budget 2024 > Latest > Commentary
Ms Carrie Tan (Nee Soon): Mr Chairman, Singapore’s Zero Waste Masterplan aims to increase the overall national recycling rate to 70% and reduce waste sent to the landfill by 30% by 2030. This goal seems reasonable.
Singapore has had Clean and Green Campaigns since 1990 and most of us recognise the 3Rs – reduce, reuse and recycle. But our actions do not mirror this awareness. Even though more than half of Singaporean households said they were recycling, the actual domestic recycling rate based on recyclables collected was only 13%. People are still discarding far more non-recyclables!
Despite much effort, there has been limited success after many years. In fact, the domestic recycling rate even dropped slightly in 2022! It is time to shift focus to “reducing” and “reusing” instead, while “recycling” happens in parallel.
Research shows it is the effort required and not the lack of desire that is the obstacle to an action. When we do not know how to repair, repurpose or re-share an item, discarding it is far easier! Convenient opportunities to swap and repair items should be permanent features in our neighbourhoods.
In Nee Soon South, we have successfully run Shwap for Sustainability events where residents can exchange clothes with one another to reduce fast fashion waste. The community group Repair Kopitiam, organises regular community events in different neighbourhoods where residents can learn how to repair items from trained volunteers.
These are two examples of local initiatives that I hope MSE can give resourcing and legs to, to propagate into all neighbourhoods in Singapore through the SG Partnerships Office. Let us discard the “throw away” mindset and embrace a “treasuring” mindset – using less, sharing more, wasting not. Let us make reducing and reusing a national movement.
Singapore is ageing. There are more people dying each day, each year. From 20,933 deaths in 2020, the number grew to 25,600 in 2022. This may sound morbid but is the harsh reality and trend going forward.
What is MSE’s long-term strategy and innovations, given that competing land needs and climate change concerns are rendering traditional ways of afterlife arrangements increasingly difficult? Do we cut down more trees to make way for more columbariums? Or can MSE work with A*STAR, for example, on research and development to treat ashes to make them beneficial for trees instead?
What are other options to having an urn, a niche and more columbariums for memorialising our loved ones who passed? I urge MSE to do more to increase Singaporeans’ awareness and willingness towards alternatives, such as inland or sea-scattering of ashes. These conversations need to start now with my generation of millennials, who are more open-minded than our parents and may well opt for alternatives.
Watch the speech here.