This is a full version of NEA’s reply issued to the media agency; published in The Straits Times, 19 Jun 2019.
We thank Mr Wong Weng Fai for his letter “Phase out single-use utensils” (ST Online, 13 June).
2 The National Environment Agency (NEA) has been working with various stakeholders to reduce the use of disposables. This includes encouraging the use of non-disposable cutlery and crockery by stallholders in our hawker centres. For newer hawker centres, such as those at Our Tampines Hub, Pasir Ris Central and Yishun Park, NEA has disallowed the use of disposables for dine-in meals from the start of hawker centres’ operations. Since September 2018, disposables are also no longer permitted for dine-in when new cooked food stallholders start to operate at existing NEA-managed centres.
3 We agree with Mr Wong on the need to remodel hawker centres to make their operations cost-effective and environmentally sustainable. We have started putting in place infrastructure to help more stallholders use reusables for their stalls’ operations. Under the centre-level productivity initiatives announced by NEA in 2017, the provision of common crockery, along with centralised dishwashing services, for stallholders will facilitate the use of reusable crockery for dine-in patrons in more hawker centres, while addressing manpower concerns related to washing needs at the same time.
4 NEA will continue to strive to design and encourage environmentally sustainable hawker centres, while working with partners to reduce the consumption and distribution of disposables.
Ivy Ong (Ms)
Director, Hawker Centres Division
National Environment Agency