Steps Taken to Ensure Recyclables Collected in Government Campaigns are Not Misused

8 Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (a) what are the mechanisms for overseeing recycling programmes by state agencies and vendors to ensure that recycling is completed as promised; and (b) whether there will be a review to strengthen the system in light of news reports on issues with implementing such a programme.

9 Mr Gan Thiam Poh asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (a) how does the Ministry ensure that recyclables collected are properly recycled according to the intended objectives as published; and (b) how many cases of collected recyclables being misused have been reported in the past five years.

10 Ms He Ting Ru asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment how does the Ministry overcome challenges that may prevent more regular and public reporting on the efficiency and effectiveness of sustainability programmes that it implements through third party vendors.

The Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (Mr Baey Yam Keng) (for the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment): Mr Speaker, may I have your permission to take Question Nos 8, 9, 10 and Question No 10 for Written Answer on today's Order Paper in a combined reply?

Mr Speaker: Please proceed.

Mr Baey Yam Keng: Thank you. Mr Speaker, Singapore's recycling landscape includes both national programmes led by the National Environment Agency (NEA) and non-governmental programmes led by corporations and community organisations.

Under the National Recycling Programme, Public Waste Collectors licensed by NEA are required to send collected recyclables to licensed materials recovery facilities for sorting, processing and recycling. Recycling facilities are licensed by NEA and must meet requirements, such as ensuring that their operations do not endanger public health, only receiving and processing the waste stream approved in its licence and submitting records to NEA on the amount of waste received and processed.

Under the Extended Producer Responsibility scheme for e-waste, NEA requires the scheme operator to send the collected e-waste for proper treatment at licensed e-waste recycling facilities. The recyclers contracted by the scheme operators are not allowed to transfer e-waste collected under the scheme overseas unless they are able to demonstrate that the foreign recycler is able to treat the e-waste to a similar or better standard. They must also submit regular reports to NEA on the amount of e-waste received and processed.

Under the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, which Singapore is a party to, it is illegal to export hazardous and other wastes as defined by the Basel Convention, without Prior Informed Consent from the state of import or transit. Relevant permits are also required from NEA under the Hazardous Waste (Control of Export, Import and Transit) Act.

For the export of recyclables that are not covered by the Basel Convention, such as sorted streams of ferrous, non-ferrous metals and textiles, companies would have to adhere to the relevant domestic regulations of the importing countries. The companies would also have to be accountable to the organisers of the recycling programme and the donors of the recyclables, based on contractual agreements and conditions that were agreed upon.

All segments of society have a part to play in recycling right to achieve our vision of a zero-waste nation. We need to strike a balance between ensuring appropriate levels of regulation and governance, and not imposing overly onerous requirements which would inadvertently discourage voluntary recycling initiatives.

My Ministry and NEA will continue to monitor our recycling landscape and strengthen our processes as necessary.

Mr Speaker: Mr Dennis Tan.

Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong (Hougang): I thank the Minister of MCCY Mr Edwin Tong and Senior Parliamentary Secretary Mr Baey Yam Keng for their answers. I have one supplementary question for the Minister. The Minister mentioned that there will be regular checks conducted on the premises. Can I just ask how regular will these checks be?

And I have two supplementary questions for Senior Parliamentary Secretary Baey. One, can the Government encourage more private sector participation to recycle items like sports shoes, like in this case, so that we can minimise the volume of shoes actually being thrown away and being incinerated or in the case of being disposed of overseas, being dumped in landfills? Number two, will the Government consider giving more incentives to companies to attract them to take part in such recycling programmes?

The Minister for Culture, Community and Youth (Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai): On how regular such checks should be made, I am not going to be able to tell Mr Tan with accuracy as to how much time, how many days or how many weeks and so on. But you have got to leave some discretion to the project partners and if Mr Tan heard my answer earlier, Yok Impex was actually a subcontractor engaged by one of the partners. It is not an entity that SportSG deals with directly.

At the same time, the degree of regularity should also depend on the extent to which the number of shoes collected and aggregated at the various centres reach a certain level that makes commercial sense for the partners to then go and collect it.

So, I would say, we leave the precise engineering of the timetable to the partners to deal with, but I would like to assure Mr Tan that one of the learning points from this is precisely to also conduct these checks often and unannounced, so that there will be not just a check itself but also the whole framework and a system, to deter activities that do not comply with the contractual scope of the obligations.

Mr Baey Yam Keng: As part of our Zero Waste Nation vision, we would like to encourage all consumers and users to reduce, reuse and recycle. So, we do welcome companies or non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to promote to every one of us to do more of reducing, reusing and recycling.

So, that is why NEA looks at supporting local capabilities, for example, in recycling. Grants are provided for facilities to build our capabilities, like in this case, we supported BT Sports, one of the project's partners, in building the facility to convert the sport shoes into granules for use in rubber flooring.

On top of that, we also have funds like the SG Eco Fund that will provide financial resources for both corporate as well as community organisations to promote environmental sustainability and the likes of rubber shoe recycling would certainly be something we would be happy to support. Corporations and organisations are welcome to apply or talk to NEA and the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE) about their interest, and we can see how we can facilitate that.

Mr Speaker: Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim.

Mr Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim (Chua Chu Kang): Thank you, Speaker. Sir, I am a former member of Sport Singapore (SportSG) board in the last term, and I welcome the efforts that SportSG has done to support our sustainability effort. I hope this episode would not deter our Sport Singapore from doing such efforts.

I understand that investigations are still ongoing, and this is a question for Minister Edwin Tong. The Minister mentioned about tweaking, fine-tuning and tightening the process downstream with the subcontractors. Are there any contractual mechanisms that Sport Singapore can impose on its partners to similarly have such monitoring mechanisms or tightening of that process downstream on the subcontractors?

Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: I thank Mr Zhulkarnain, first of all, for his encouragement for this project to continue. And I think that is important because much as there has been an infraction at the process level, at the end of the day, this is a project that allows us to use materials that we would otherwise have really no use for. And the number of shoes that are discarded everyday amounts to a substantial number. Which is why we have been able, since the project started, to collect 10,000 kilogrammes of shoes and have already deployed them into the existing facilities that we have. We intend to continue with this – whether it is at playgrounds or other sports facilities.

Mr Zhulkarnain knows from our masterplan that there are plans to install sporting facilities in, as far as possible, every town that we have. So, many of these facilities will take advantage of and use these sustainable materials.

On Mr Zhulkarnain's point about having tighter contractual mechanisms, it is possible. So, some oversight, some checks, some unannounced, some audits, and some reports can be put in place. And all these can be put into the contract and the provisions for reporting.

But, at the end of the day, I think it is also important to bear in mind that this is otherwise not a complicated contract nor a complicated arrangement. It is really for an aggregator to come and go around the different bins to collect the shoes. And it is really a question of taking the steps to ensure that there is proper segregation.

What, as we can tell from the investigation, resulted in the problems that we have seen, came from a lax system for proper accounting and not allowing them to be properly sorted in segregated sections. That was the real problem. And so, steps have been taken to correct this between Alba and its various other sub-contractors – those that it may appoint in place of Yok Impex. But we will certainly see the extent to which we can impart into these sub-contracts some other mechanisms that tighten the process without being overly burdensome, which then in turn increases the cost of collection.

Mr Speaker: Mr Yip Hon Weng.

Mr Yip Hon Weng (Yio Chu Kang): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is for MCCY. Learning from this incident, how will the Ministry strengthen the process, such that credible partners will be selected for future recycling projects?

Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: Sir, I think I have explained how we intend to strengthen the process and the steps that we have taken and intend to take. The point I will make is we do want partners to come forward with the assurance and confidence in the project that the shoes that are collected for a recycling project like this will, in fact, end up being the granules that we use for our sporting infrastructure.

Mr Speaker: Mr Pritam Singh.

Mr Pritam Singh (Aljunied): Thank you, Mr Speaker. My question is directed at Minister. This is pertaining to the Reuters report, which I think, really, was addressing the prospect of greenwashing, or at least the concerns of greenwashing.

I do not really have any objection to the principles behind why this initiative was carried out by Sport Singapore. I think sustainability initiatives ought to be encouraged. But my question pertains to whether Sport Singapore or MCCY made an assessment as to the conversion of sports shoes into rubber granules as being more green or more environmentally sustainable than the existing method which, as I understand also, uses this recycled tyres, for example. So, the question then is, does this initiative move the needle, or is it just a conversion of one recyclable material for another?

Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: The short answer is yes, there was such an assessment made. And to take Mr Singh's comparison, without overly going into technical details, the rubber density of old tyres is quite different from that of the shoes that you see and the extent to which we want a certain density at the running track and on the playgrounds, they rely better and use better the materials from the shoes rather than old tyres.

Mr Pritam Singh: Thank you, Mr Speaker. My understanding from people in the industry is a lot of these materials are then actually compressed together – tyres are used with rubber soles as well. Because each layer of the surface of a running track is made of different materials. I would not get into the technicalities of it, of course, but I think the principle point remains with regard to ensuring that the method that SportSG adopts is actually more green and sustainable to ensure that programmes like this succeed.

Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: I would not get into a debate over the efficacy of which material is best used for playgrounds and sports grounds and so on, but I will ensure that the point that you have raised is fed back to the relevant engineers so that they will study this.

But I will put to Mr Singh this – at the very least, this method does use the shoes as a further source of materials, when the shoes would otherwise be disposed of. So, if nothing else, the grinding facility provides an additional avenue for waste material. And I have said earlier in my answer, the number of shoes that are discarded, provides an avenue for these shoes to be reused in public infrastructure facilities.

Mr Speaker: Dr Tan Wu Meng.

Dr Tan Wu Meng (Jurong): I thank the Minister and Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the answer. I have got two supplementary questions. The first is on the description of lax sorting at the downstream contractor Yok Impex. Looking at the Reuters article of 25 February 2023, I may stand corrected, but there is a phrase that says, "none of the 11 pairs of shoes donated by Reuters were turned into exercise paths or kids' parks in Singapore”. In view of this, what is the Ministry's assessment of how lax the sorting was, given that, none of 11 shoes donated by Reuters actually went to the intended purpose?

The second question is, do the authorities' investigations plan to look into whether any sub-contractor or their employee received inappropriate direct or secondary gains or even inappropriate gratification in conjunction with the redirection of these shoes that were meant to be recycled?

Mr Speaker: Dr Tan, did any of the shoes belong to your Clementi residents? Sorry, I just had to ask.

Dr Tan Wu Meng: I should declare, Mr Speaker, that I do have Clementi residents who have donated shoes.

Mr Speaker: Okay, point taken. Thank you. Minister.

Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: To Dr Tan's second question, investigations are being done by the contractor which engaged the sub-contractor and they are currently ongoing, and I will leave the investigation as they were. If there are any other findings that are material, then we can raise this again in this House.

As to Dr Tan's first point, the way in which the system was working previously, was for Yok Impex, the sub-contractor, to collect from designated areas around Singapore and all of their collections would then be brought back to their facility for the sorting purposes. I cannot tell you nor can I glean from the Reuters' report where the shoes were deposited; whether they are all done at the same place or divided up into 11 different locations or otherwise. And so, I would not want to speculate as to why that is the case. The fact of the matter is that as far as the investigations show, it is only the Yok Impex collections that have been tainted with this finding based on information we have currently. So, the measures that Alba has taken in relation to Yok Impex would, in relation to the findings that we know so far, be sufficient to address the problem.