Waste paper recycling plan for housing estates

AN ISLANDWIDE waste paper recycling effort involving housing estates managed by town councils will get underway soon, coordinated by the Environment Ministry.

This follows the success of a pilot programme carried out by the Bishan-Serangoon Town Council last year, where households were asked to take their old newspapers to the void deck once a month for collection.

An Environment Ministry spokesman told The Straits Times that the scheme, which is voluntary, received good support from the residents.

"The ministry is now working with several town councils on a similar scheme and hopes to expand it to all town councils."

But he said the success of the programme will hinge on residents’ willingness to take the waste paper down to the void decks to be collected.

In the pilot programme, a total of 711 tonnes of waste paper was collected last year from 33,500 households. This helped raise $80,000 for the National Kidney Foundation. The amount was matched dollar-for-dollar by Sony.

The ENV has also been working with the management corporations of condominiums to start similar schemes in private estates.

The ministry’s recycling efforts are being stepped up as the amount of refuse continues to grow.

Last year, 2.4 million tonnes of waste was collected, of which more than half —1.26 million tonnes — was from homes. On the whole, the average daily amount of refuse is growing.

From 3,006 tonnes in 1992, the amount grew to 3,258 tonnes in 1993 and reached 3,454 tonnes a day last year.

Aside from collecting waste paper from homes, the ENV is working with industry groups to promote recycling.

It recently offered a 2.5 ha site at the closed Lim Chu Kang landfill site to be used as a wood recycling plant. The tender exercise is still going on.

Working committees have been formed with other industries:

• Hotel industry: An ecohotel steering committee was formed in 1992. Since then, glass recycling has started at about 40 hotels.

Guidelines on standardising toiletry containers were also drawn up last year.

• A waste minimisation programme will start at Jurong Shipyard and will be expanded to other shipyards later. Under the programme, audits will be carried out in the middle of this year to see where waste can be minimised or recycled.

Giving an update on recycling efforts as a whole, the ministry spokesman said there are 950 recycling schemes at present run mainly by schools, offices and housing estates, both private and public.

Source : The Straits Times 17 Feb 1995

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