Recycling By Companies and Households

6 Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar asked the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources (a) whether he can provide an update on how many households, companies and businesses currently practise recycling of recyclable items respectively; and (b) how extensively are recycling bins used within our housing estates and public places.

The Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources (Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan) (for the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources): Every Housing and Development Board (HDB) block, condominium and private apartment development and landed property is served by recycling bins or a centralised chute for recyclables (CCR).

Based on a National Environment Agency (NEA) survey conducted over 2015 and 2016, about 83% of households practised recycling. Of those who practised recycling, 91% indicated that they did so via the recycling bins provided by our public waste collectors. Based on NEA's data on the commercial sector, 94% of large hotels and shopping malls have implemented recycling programmes for their premises. As a whole, the non-domestic sector had a recycling rate of 76% in 2017.

Besides the recycling bins in residential estates, there are about 125 sets of recycling bins deployed in public places with high human traffic in the Central-South region of Singapore. And 40.8 tonnes of recyclables were collected through these recycling bins in 2017.

While the recycling rate for the non-domestic sector has been high, our domestic recycling rate has grown only gradually, to 21% in 2017. This is higher than the figure cited in recent media reports, which only covers the National Recycling Programme (NRP). NRP, which provides recycling bins and CCRs to make it convenient for households to recycle daily, is only one means by which domestic recyclables are collected. Other means include door-to-door collection by the informal sector and collection drives at community events.

We are making it easier for residents to recycle in order to increase the domestic recycling rate to 30% by 2030, which is one of the targets of our Sustainable Singapore Blueprint. For example, from 1 April this year, all new non-landed private residential developments above four storeys will need to provide dual chutes for refuse and recyclables. These dual chutes have already been introduced in new HDB Build-To-Order (BTO) flats since January 2014. All existing condominiums will also have to provide one recycling bin per block from 1 August this year. We also recently announced plans to implement an e-waste management system through the Extended Producer Responsibility approach by 2021.

Ultimately, active participation in recycling by all Singaporeans is key to improving our domestic recycling rates. NEA will continue to engage Singaporeans and non-government organisations (NGOs) via social media posts, educational materials distributed at community and school events, and providing information on NEA's website and NEA's myENV mobile app. We hope that through these initiatives, more will be encouraged to do their part for the environment.

Mr Speaker: Dr Intan Mokhtar.

Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar (Ang Mo Kio): I thank the Senior Minister of State for the answers. I am wondering, what is the impact on the recycling process when items are all mixed together, because there are some recycling bins that allow you to separate items but there are some which allow you to mix the items together. For the buildings that have dual chutes, one for rubbish and one for recyclable items, I wonder whether it is effective, because, for example, glass bottles that can be recycled, when they are thrown from heights, the moment they reach the ground floor, they shatter into shards. How would that impact the recycling process? Can better education be carried out for residents who may be confused about the two chutes, thinking that they can just throw rubbish into either one of them?

Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan: I thank the Member for her supplementary questions. Regarding the commingled recycling bin, our approach to encouraging recycling by households is to try and make it as convenient as possible for them to recycle and, of course, to raise awareness about recycling.

The blue commingled recycling bin is placed at every HDB block and provided to every private landed residential home. That is really for ease of access. First of all, they do not need to invest extra effort and time in segregating the different recyclables. They also do not need to make space at home for the different recyclables because they can just deposit the recyclables in the blue bins anytime.

These recyclables will be taken to the materials recovery facility (MRF) where the recyclables will be segregated and brought to the relevant recycling plants for processing. Regarding the contamination of recyclables that the Member alluded to for the blue commingled recycling bin, yes, there is contamination of recyclables if they deposit food waste or non-recyclables in the bin. The contamination rate is about 40% on average.

In this area, what we want to do is to appeal to the public to be gracious and not deposit the non-recyclables in the bins, particularly if it is food waste. When it contaminates the recyclables, you waste people's effort in wanting to do their part for the environment. What we will also do is to work with stakeholders on the ground, for instance, the Town Councils, to make sure that there are sufficient waste bins around.

We are also looking into putting up more prominent labels on the blue recycling bins to tell them "no food and liquid waste” in the recycling bins, and we hope that Singaporeans will be more gracious.

With regard to dual chutes, HDB's study in 2012 showed that blocks with dual chutes system, that means, one for waste and one for recyclables, actually contribute up to three times more recyclables than the blocks without those chutes. Because of this, HDB has implemented the dual chutes system for all the BTO flats launched from 2014, and we are requiring private non-landed residential developments above four storeys to also have this dual chute system from 1 April.

The Member is right that if you throw recyclables into the chute, depending on where they land, glass bottles, for instance, might be broken. But this will not affect the recovery of the other commingled recyclables at MRF. Actually, even for glass pieces, particularly for the larger pieces, they can be recovered for recycling.