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Global Briefing
Packaging Waste, including plastics
Food Waste
E-waste
Singaporeans, consumption level is at an all-time high, and will only be on an upward trend. There is hence, a need to nudge Singaporeans towards a greener mindset and shift in lifestyle habits to practise the 3Rs. There are initiatives to encourage reduction of food waste and disposables, such as the Say YES to Waste Less campaign, to increase public awareness on overconsumption, its environmental impacts and highlight the need for change towards a more sustainable lifestyle.
Do you also know that you can now bring your clothes and shoes to repair at certain hawker centres? Spaces have been allocated in hawker centres to promote the idea of “repair and reuse” to encourage individuals to reduce their consumption.
c. Sustainable Waste and Resource Management
Moving forward, there are also plans to take a step further and make existing waste and resource management strategies more sustainable. One example is exploring the recovery of treasure from trash where incineration bottom ash, which is currently disposed of at Semakau Landfill, will be treated to become “NEWSand” for non- structural construction purposes (e.g. road base/sub-base materials or as concrete aggregate).
To cover resources from waste more efficiently, Tuas Nexus (recently named the “Most Innovative Water-Energy Nexus Project”) is being developed and will be the world’s first energy self-sustaining greenfield development to integrate used water treatment and waste management.
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The facility incorporates many synergies such as the co-digestion of food waste with used water sludge to produce a higher yield of biogas which will in turn be used to produce electricity and power the facility, which will optimise resources and achieve long-term environmental sustainability.
Closing the Waste Loops
In the push for the adoption of a circular economy, Singapore also prioritised the closing of three key resource loops. These waste streams were identified due to their large generation amounts but an alarmingly low recycling rate (Figure 3). The three (3) key waste streams are: food, e-waste and packaging (including plastics).
a. Food
Despite Singaporeans’ penchant for eating and seemingly insatiable craving for food, households are surprisingly among the greatest generators of food waste, making up around half of Singapore’s total food waste generated. The amount of food waste has risen by nearly 30% over the last 10 years and is set to grow further with our expanding population. Despite food waste making up almost 20% of the total disposed waste in Singapore in 2018, only 17% of our food waste was recycled.
To encourage sustainable consumption of food, NEA has introduced a holistic set of measures including a consumer food waste reduction guide for consumers and piloting on-site food waste treatment systems that convert food waste into non-potable water, liquid nutrient or compost which can be used for other purposes.
On the legislative front, large commercial and industrial food waste generators will be required to segregate food waste for treatment from 2024 under the Resource Sustainability Act. From 2021, it will also be mandatory for developers of new commercial and industrial premises, where large amounts of food waste are expected to be generated, to allocate and set aside space for on-site food waste treatment systems in their design plans. Targeting the bigger contributors will be the first big step towards achieving resource sustainability for food waste.
b. E-waste
Every year, over 60,000 tonnes of electrical and electronic equipment are thrown away (known as e-waste), which equates to an astonishing 11kg of e-waste (weight of 73 mobile phones) discarded by each individual. While e-waste only contributes to less than 1% of the total waste in
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