[1] Waste generation is the sum of total waste disposed of and total waste recycled.

[2] Non-domestic waste is waste collected from industries and commercial premises.

[3] Domestic waste is waste collected from households and trade premises (e.g. shophouses, educational institutions, petrol stations, hawker centres and places of worship).

[4] The recycling rate is derived from the amount of waste recycled divided by the total amount of waste recycled and waste disposed of.

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ANNEX A

2021 Waste Statistics and Overall Recycling Rate Table

Note:
Figures are rounded to the nearest thousand and percentage point.
Metals recovered from incineration bottom ash for recycling is excluded from waste disposed of.
Wood and horticultural waste recycled include 435,000 tonnes sent to facilities (e.g., biomass power plants and Sembcorp’s Energy from Waste plant) for use as fuel.

2020 Waste Statistics and Overall Recycling Rate Table

Note:
Figures are rounded to the nearest thousand and percentage point.
Metals recovered from incineration bottom ash for recycling is excluded from waste disposed of.
Wood and horticultural waste recycled include 406,000 tonnes sent to facilities (e.g., biomass power plants and Sembcorp’s Energy from Waste plant) for use as fuel.

2019 Waste Statistics and Overall Recycling Rate Table

Note:
Figures are rounded to the nearest thousand and percentage point.
Metals recovered from incineration bottom ash for recycling is excluded from waste disposed of.
Wood and horticultural waste recycled include 458,000 tonnes sent to facilities (e.g., biomass power plants and Sembcorp’s Energy from Waste plant) for use as fuel.

ANNEX C

Waste Reduction Efforts to Close the Waste Loop and Improve Recycling Rate

1          NEA has been progressively implementing plans to close the waste loop and increase the recycling rate. More importantly, to reduce the amount of waste disposed of at Semakau Landfill. There is scope to do more to reduce our overall waste generation and thereby reduce the amount of waste sent for incineration and landfill.

Waste Reduction Efforts to Close the Waste Loop

2          With the Zero Waste Masterplan, Singapore is adopting a circular economy approach to close three resource loops –- electrical and electronic waste (e-waste), packaging waste including plastics, and food waste. Some of these waste streams are generated in large amounts but have a low recycling rate. These waste streams will be regulated under the Resource Sustainability Act, which was introduced in 2019. They are as follows:

• For e-waste, an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Scheme started on 1 July 2021. Under the EPR approach, producers bear the responsibility for collection and treatment of their products when they reach end-of-life. Under this scheme, more than 500 e-waste bins have been deployed island-wide at shopping malls, community centres, large retailers, and government buildings. As of February 2022, more than 3,800 tonnes of e-waste have been collected by the PRS Operator. Since February 2022, there have been regular e-waste collection drives at public housing estates, making the recycling of e-waste more convenient for residents. Residents can continue to request for the removal of bulky e-waste through their Town Councils. Arrangements have been made to collect bulky e-waste for proper treatment and recycling. Regulated products that can be collected under the EPR scheme include ICT equipment, batteries, lamps, large household appliances and solar panels.

• For packaging waste, large producers of packaged products and retailers, including supermarkets, are required to report annually the amount of packaging they introduce into Singapore, as well as their plans to reduce, reuse or recycle packaging. Producers are required to submit their first report by 31 March 2022. This is a step towards making companies aware of the environmental impact of packaging that they supply to the market and spur them to reduce packaging and packaging waste. These Mandatory Packaging Reporting requirements set the foundation for an upcoming EPR framework for packaging waste.

• Efforts are also ongoing to develop an EPR for packaging waste, starting with a return scheme for beverage containers. Under such a scheme, a deposit is included in the price of pre-packaged beverages. Consumers will receive a refund upon returning the used beverage container. To facilitate the development of this scheme, NEA formed a stakeholder group comprising key industry, academia, and civil society representatives in December 2021. Over the past two years, NEA has engaged more than 250 large and small producers, which make up about 90 per cent of the pre-packaged beverage market. This included industry briefings, surveys and one-on-one engagements with individual companies and trade associations. Other stakeholders consulted included retailers, waste management companies and members of the public. NEA will continue to broaden engagement with the public and industry in the coming months, to co-design a cost-effective and suitable scheme for Singapore.

• For food waste, industrial and commercial buildings that generate large amounts of food waste will gradually be required to segregate their food waste for treatment in 2024 and 2025. The segregation of food waste will enable greater resource recovery and close the food waste loop by converting food waste into useful or more valuable products like animal feed or biogas for energy generation. This will reduce waste sent for incineration and conserve landfill space. Since January 2021, developers of new large commercial and industrial premises must allocate and set aside space for on-site food waste treatment systems in their design plans. To complement the food waste segregation for treatment requirements, industrial and commercial buildings that generate large amounts of food waste will be required to measure and report the amount of food waste they have segregated for treatment. The reporting requirements will take effect in tandem with the food waste segregation requirements.

3          On another waste reduction initiative, NEA also recently announced plans to implement a disposable carrier bag charge at supermarkets in mid-2023. It will serve as a behavioural nudge to shoppers to adopt more sustainable consumption habits and bring their own bags. This is an important step for everyone to become a greener citizenry, where we show our care for the environment in our daily choices and actions. 

4          To nudge behavioural change amongst the public and encourage collective individual efforts, NEA has been raising awareness about the excessive consumption of disposables, as well as food wastage. The Say YES to Waste Less Campaign in 2021 involved 169 partners covering almost 3,000 premises, including corporates, social enterprises, interest groups, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and Community Development Councils (CDCs). These partners had committed to various actions to reduce food wastage and/or disposables such as prompting customers to order just enough food, plan meals in advance, make use of blemished or surplus food, and offering perks such as free drink toppings, discounts or loyalty points for customers who bring their own reusable carrier bags and containers. We are encouraged by the growing number of partners who have come onboard to support the campaign with their various initiatives.

Efforts to improve recycling rate

5          NEA is also encouraging Singaporeans to not just recycle more, but to also #RecycleRight. This is, however, not just a matter of putting more items in recycling bins. Currently, the contamination rate of our blue recycling bins remains high. About 40 per cent of the contents found in the blue recycling bins cannot be recycled due to contamination, mainly from food and liquid waste, as well as e-waste and Styrofoam. Households also deposit items such as clothing and soft toys, which should not be placed into the blue bins, but instead donated if they are in good condition.

6          Hence, NEA’s Recycle Right campaign was launched to help households understand how to recycle correctly. Educational and user-friendly content have also been developed to encourage the public to cultivate good recycling practices. For example, NEA has launched a website filter to help the public identify what can be recycled in the blue recycling bin via a search engine portal (www.go.gov.sg/recycleright). Other initiatives under the campaign include:

• Introducing a new recycling mascot named Bloobin. Bloobin is a disgruntled blue recycling bin frustrated by the years of contamination and on a mission to educate the public on how to recycle right. There are Bloobin stickers placed at general waste and recycling chutes at public housing developments to serve as a last-mile reminder to nudge households to check their items before appropriately disposing of them as general waste or recyclables.

• Producing interactive educational resources such as an e-activity book for preschoolers and e-games for older students. To develop deeper and more meaningful engagement programmes, an Inter-Institutes of Higher Learning challenge, ‘Ready, Set, Recycle’, was launched in 2022 to mobilise youth to take action for recycling. Ngee Ann Polytechnic won the challenge.

• To work collectively for Singapore’s future, NEA is collaborating with the community, non-governmental organisations, corporate and industry partners to encourage the public to recycle more and recycle right, and to explore and implement new methods of making recycling convenient in neighbourhoods and homes.

• For example, to bring greater recycling convenience to residents and overcome the ‘last-mile’ hurdle, some of our public waste collectors work with traders and informal collectors (such as ‘karang guni’) to provide door-to-door recyclable collection services. Some of these informal collectors may be unregistered businesses and they supplement the network offered by our public waste collectors and other licensed waste collectors. The amount of recyclables collected from the domestic sector includes those collected by the public waste collectors under the National Recycling Programme (NRP) and the informal sector, during community events and door-to-door collections by schools for fundraising. Together, the NRP and the informal recycling sector recycled 13 per cent of the domestic waste generated in 2021.

7          NEA is taking further steps to encourage recycling at every home. To nudge households to step up their recycling efforts, NEA is also planning to distribute recycling containers to households in the later part of 2022 – being careful to minimise wastage and only provide these to households that want them. More details will be announced at a later stage.

8          Other efforts to encourage good recycling behaviour among the public include NEA’s collaboration with the National University of Singapore (NUS) to trial specially designed “recycle right” recycling bins. Developed by NUS, these bins were designed to nudge users to recycle correctly and thereby reduce contamination in recycling bins. The pilot study was conducted at shopping malls – JEM, IMM and Westgate, from November 2021 to January 2022. Given the positive outcomes in reducing contamination in recycling bins, NEA and NUS will share the findings of the trial with partners they engage, to encourage premises owners to promote positive recycling behaviour on their premises.