Deployment of Surveillance Cameras to Catch High-rise Littering and Trial of Other Technologies to Supplement Present Efforts

9 Dr Tan Wu Meng asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment in the past two years (a) how many instances of high-rise littering have been considered by NEA for the deployment of surveillance cameras; (b) how many of such cases are deemed unsuitable due to technical constraints; and (c) what is NEA’s approach to investigating and stopping high-rise littering from dwellings deemed unsuitable for the deployment of surveillance cameras, where the resident is recalcitrant and his neighbours have reason to believe that he aware of the technical constraints faced by NEA.

10 Ms Foo Mee Har asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment how is the Ministry leveraging the latest technologies, including artificial intelligence and surveillance drones, to enhance the detection and investigation of high-rise littering.

11 Ms Yeo Wan Ling asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment in the past three years (a) what is the number of high-rise littering complaints filed to the National Environment Agency; and (b) what is the percentage of successfully enforced cases.

The Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment (Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan) (for the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment): Mr Speaker, with your permission, may I take Question Nos 9 to 11 on today's Order Paper?

Mr Speaker: Please proceed.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan: Thank you. Mr Speaker, my response to Dr Tan Wu Meng, Ms Foo Mee Har and Ms Yeo Wan Ling's Parliamentary Questions (PQs) today will also address the related PQs on high-rise littering filed by Mr Edward Chia for 7 January as well as the written PQ by Miss Cheryl Chan in today's Order Paper.

In addressing high-rise littering, the National Environment Agency (NEA) undertakes various measures to educate the public, detect instances of high-rise littering and enforce against offenders. In 2022 and 2023, NEA received an average of about 27,100 high-rise littering feedback reports per year. This was significantly lower than the annual average of about 33,500 feedback received in 2020 and 2021.

When there is such feedback at a block of HDB flats, NEA will work with the Town Council to, first, issue advisories to residents in the block. Should the high-rise littering issue persist, NEA will investigate to determine the likely offending unit and deploy surveillance cameras with video analytics to capture acts of high-rise littering and support enforcement efforts.

Between 2021 and 2023, NEA deployed cameras in about 97.1% of 7,400 persistent high-rise littering cases. The remainder were assessed as unsuitable, due to the design and layout of the blocks and the lack of appropriate vantage points.

In instances where camera deployment is not feasible, NEA will step up educational outreach to households in the affected stack, conduct stakeouts and initiate further investigations if there are eyewitness accounts. Members of the public, who are aware of their neighbours' littering behaviour, may also submit video evidence of high-rise littering acts to NEA for investigation.

Depending on factors, such as the weather, duration of surveillance and visibility of the camera to would-be offenders, the detection rate of high-rise littering acts could vary and result in fluctuations in the yearly enforcement rate. From 2021 to 2023, such acts were detected in about 30% of surveillance cameras deployment resulting in over 3,300 enforcement actions.

In the coming year, NEA will be introducing new operational measures to improve the detection rate. These include the use of cameras with higher resolution and longer deployment durations. Cameras will also be deployed in more covert locations to better detect high-rise littering activities.

To increase public awareness and deterrence against high-rise littering, NEA also collaborates with the Town Councils to deploy standees indicating ongoing surveillance or localised statistics on offenders caught and display posters indicating the number of incidents of high-rise littering caught for the affected column.

My Ministry will continue to monitor and explore measures to enhance detection and enforcement capabilities for high-rise littering, including keeping pace with technological developments in video analytics and artificial intelligence, and monitoring the suitability and safety of technologies, such as drone flights for high-rise littering surveillance.

In addition, we will continue to strengthen partnerships with communities to develop localised solutions to address high-rise littering and urge residents to be considerate and not commit such acts, which is an anti-social behaviour that threatens public safety and hygiene.

Mr Speaker: Dr Tan Wu Meng.

Dr Tan Wu Meng (Jurong): I thank the Senior Minister of State for her answer. I have a Clementi resident who, for over a year, had food waste thrown out from a unit some floors above and was told that his block, which is one of the Clementi central blocks, because of the design, despite good grounds for suspecting which unit was responsible, NEA's existing technology could not actually target the window where the high-rise litter was coming from. And worse still, it appeared that the suspect unit knew this and, therefore, felt a sense of impunity.

Can the Senior Minister of State tell us, how soon these better cameras, less obvious cameras, more flexibly-orientable cameras, how soon can these be deployed? And if hot spots can be prioritised, especially where there is considerable disamenity from high-rise litter? Likewise, there are one or two spots in the Clementi area where there have been incidents of faeces being thrown from a high-rise window or sanitary pads and some of these have been ongoing for a while. We hope for NEA's support in addressing these issues.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan: I thank the Member for highlighting the issues. It is not just faced by Clementi residents. Because Singapore is so dense, high-rise living, densely built. There are instances of these. Fortunately, it is not the majority of Singaporeans. It is the minority who are engaged in such anti-social behaviour, but enough to cause us grief. And we need to put in quite a substantial amount of resources to tackle high-rise littering.

As noted by the Member, there are some blocks where the design is such that it is very difficult to find a vantage point to deploy surveillance cameras. I had said earlier in my reply that for such instances, we will have to work on intensifying outreach and education efforts, getting the support of the community, for instance, to see how we can instil more socially responsible behaviour or to give us ground intelligence, as to the suspected unit and even evidence where it is available. We also do stake-outs to try and nab the litterbug. But as I have noted, it is not easy and we will need to depend on working with the community for such cases.

With regard to when better cameras and other technologies will be available, we continue to explore the availability of such technologies. As I have said, we are looking into getting higher resolution cameras with a wider field of view, for instance, that may address some of these issues as well as looking at where we can better put these cameras and so on.

But having said that, the important point to note is that the use of surveillance cameras and other technologies really just augment all the other efforts that we are putting in to tackle high-rise littering. It is a multi-pronged and holistic approach. I do not think we can just depend on technology to do this. We need to work together with the community and a more sustainable way is to change behaviour and cultivate more gracious behaviour and collective responsibility in tackling high-rise littering issues and in keeping Singapore clean and safe.

Mr Speaker: Ms Yeo Wan Ling.

Ms Yeo Wan Ling (Pasir Ris-Punggol): Thank you, Mr Speaker. In Punggol, I have received feedback of two kinds with regard to high-rise littering. The first being the repetition of the same littering cases, even with the residents reporting this to authorities and enforcement actions being taken. And the second being the perception of higher incidences of high-rise littering even if, statistically, there was a decrease in the reports. It could be an issue, very much like what Dr Tan Wu Meng had mentioned, of extreme disamenities being thrown out, such as full packets of cooked food and fully-loaded adult diapers.

I would like to ask the Senior Minister of State if there has been new technologies developed over the years beyond cameras that NEA will deploy soon to be more effective in catching such acts? And if NEA will be relooking at the punitive measures taken against such recalcitrant high-rise litterers? And if there are plans for the NEA to work closer with the grassroots organisations on a national plan to eradicate high-rise littering behaviours and what these plans are going to be like?

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan: Hot spots and hot topic. I also want to refer back to Dr Tan Wu Meng's earlier question as well as Member Ms Yeo Wan Ling's question about hot spots and egregious high-rise littering acts. Over the years we have improved or enhanced our processes in terms of surveillance camera deployment. Now we use data analytics to prioritise deployment of surveillance cameras. If there are hot spots with persistent littering and egregious high-rise littering acts, these will be prioritised for deployment of surveillance cameras.

With regard to technology, again, as I have said in my earlier reply, we continue to explore and monitor technologies available, including drone flights. But currently, our assessment is that, for drone flights, there are some challenges. For instance, the battery life is not long enough for continuous monitoring. There is also some safety risk because these are high-rise buildings, so, drone flights may cause issues with safety as well as privacy. But we are not shutting this off; we are looking at that. For cameras, we are looking, as I said, on higher resolution cameras as well as working with industry players on the development of better video analytics in order to better detect high-rise littering cases. So, this is ongoing.

With regard to the third question from the Member Ms Yeo on penalties, since 2014, we have doubled the maximum court fines. For high-rise littering, they are not offered composition fine. They have to attend Court. And the maximum penalty, as I have said, has been doubled: first offence, up to $2,000; second offence, up to $4,000; third and subsequent offence, up to $10,000.

When high-rise litterbugs are caught on surveillance cameras, they may be caught for more than one act, because the surveillance cameras can be there for five days, seven days and up to 14 days. We have seen cases where they are caught every day for high-rise littering and so, the fine, the penalty is very stiff and they can also be asked to go for Corrective Work Order. We have done this as part of a package to really deter high-rise litterbugs.

Beyond that, as I have said, and which the Member has also suggested, we need to work with the community. We need to work with the community, in fact, for localised ideas as to how we can better deter such behaviours. Some of the things we are doing on the ground – for instance, putting standees to show that the area is under surveillance or putting up posters on the number of litterbugs that have been caught there or littering acts that have been caught there – is to raise deterrence, as well as to encourage a change in behaviour. We will be more than happy to work with the community on what else we can do with regard to tackling this issue.

Mr Speaker: Ms Foo Mee Har.

Ms Foo Mee Har (West Coast): Thank you, Speaker. I would not repeat the same points my colleagues have already made, but I just wanted to reinforce that the frustration for high-rise littering remains a very significant one amongst my residents.

I noted that the Senior Minister of State mentioned that for even very egregious cases where there are a lot of reports, the success rate for enforcement is only 30%. So, if I get the Senior Minister of State's statistics that she has just said correctly, you have a camera there, people report over and over again, because we have all walked the ground and we know where the cases are. In fact, for some cases, we even say, "It is this unit". But the enforcement success, so far has, not been there – if I understand the statistics correctly, it is 30%.

I wanted to ask the Senior Minister of State what are the challenges? Why is it so difficult when we are already telling you exactly where and these are egregious cases, and there are many others. So, if the Senior Minister of State can shed some light and we can work together. I can assure the Senior Minister of State the grassroots and the community will do anything to get rid of that and take the perpetrators to task. So, if you can just tell us what would be helpful, we will do it.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan: The 30% catch rate is overall and it varies from year to year. The fluctuations really can be multi-factorial; we cannot really identify why it is 30%. But really, the success rate of a particular case depends on the information we have. If we are able to really pin down that particular stack or that particular few levels, and we are able to aim the camera there, then the likelihood of being caught for the high-rise littering is higher.

The other thing, of course, is I think we all know – it is not only Clementi, West Coast, Ayer Rajah or Gek Poh residents who are frustrated. Everybody who faces this problem is frustrated if we cannot catch them. We do our best. But for particular cases, if we have good information, the chance is very high that we will catch the litterbug.

So, I had a look through all the cases of the different Members of Parliament who have filed the high-rise littering PQs. And among those, there are cases where we have caught the litterbug. We put the surveillance camera and we have caught them. And there are cases where we have not – and it can be for various reasons. Either the intelligence is not good, or it is very hard to find a good vantage point. Sometimes, we have the vantage point and the camera is so visible to the offender that during that period, he does not offend. That can be the case. Although I hope that sometimes when you see the camera, you would not offend and then you do not do it anymore. But that is not always the issue.

So, I think it is a host of factors. But on average, it is 30%. Actually, that shows the difficulty that we have in tackling this problem. And we will be most happy to get all these intelligences. In fact, it is not just videos, even photos and so on, you can give us so that we can narrow down the suspect unit or that stack. We will then engage that stack of households or intensify our engagement there.

Mr Speaker: Last supplementary question on this. Ms Carrie Tan.

Ms Carrie Tan (Nee Soon): Thank you, Speaker. I have a very different angle to this issue that I would like to raise for Senior Minister of State Khor's consideration and response. Which is that for many of these cases, especially in my constituency, we found that it is not a matter of whether we are catching and we can identify them, but it is a matter of the persons or perpetrators not being in their right mind. Whether they could have dementia or they could be suffering from other mental health conditions, and it is also very distressful for the caregivers and kin living in the same household as the perpetrator to continue to continuously face the negative perceptions and experiences of neighbours who are suffering from this high-rise littering behaviour.

So, I would like to ask the Senior Minister of State, in view of the recent community dispute resolution moves that the Government has made through the Municipal Services Office, is NEA working in tandem with that to access the levers to compel mental health assessment or to work with the Agency for Integrated Care to expedite institutional support and intervention for the perpetrators who do have a medical condition that is causing them to engage in such behaviours, where regardless of how many summonses you give, they are unlikely to be able to respond to that in a positive manner.

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan: First, let me state that whilst I say that the penalties are stiff, I must say NEA is not heartless. When we come across cases where it is a mental issue and so on, which we have, we do work with the families, refer them for treatment or encourage or advise the family to do so. And we work with the family and the community to see how we can find a solution for this. For instance, Minister Grace Fu shared with us that in her constituency, she had a case like this. So, she worked with the residents and the community to put up grilles so that they cannot do the littering. I think we need to come up with creative solutions like this for unique cases or cases where it is because they are mentally not well, and so on.

That is why I say we need to see how we can customise solutions to tackle some of these problems. I do not think you have a one-size-fits-all solution, but generally, with enforcement, with education and outreach, we hope to minimise the number of such anti-social behaviours.