RECYCLING for charity is bringing in dollars ~or the needy but it spells trouble for the karang guni man, who traditionally picked up old newspapers.

In the Tanjong PagarWest Coast area, increased competition from a recycling programme has reduced the number of customers the karang guni man has.

Some karang guni men have been taking the marked green bags containing newspapers and old clothes meant for the area’s Green Earth Programme, which covers about 600 public and private housing blocks in the area.

"But when paper prices dip,  the karan guni men don't bother coming around," said Mr Jeffrey Chua, general manager of the area’s town council.

The Society for the Physically Disabled organised the programme and Transnational Recycling Industries handles the logistics.

Up till August, about a third of the area’s 75,226 households had taken part in the programme, which began in July last year.

They contributed 3,077 tonnes of recyclable waste —about the weight of 285 double-decker buses.

The society earned about $200,000 from this collection. Project organisers could not gauge the amount lost to pilferage over the past few months.

"It may not have a big impact of earnin~s, but it may cause misgivings among residents who’ve participated in good faith to help charity," said a society spolcesman.

At first, the. organisers thought the karana guni man could have picked up the bags thinking they had been left out for them.

"But early this year, we found out there were a few syndicated groups who knew the collection routine," said the spokesman.

"Most did not take tbe whole bag but rummaged through and took just the paper."

So the organisers have changed their tack.. They have staggered the collection dates and times for different blocks.

"We have given the authorised commercial collectors identifiable shirts and name tags to differentiate them from the karang guni man," said Mr Chua.

And residents now have a hotline they can call to report if their bags were not collected or if there was pilferage.

The residents interviewed said they were not against selling old papers to the karang guni man, but believed no one should go through bags of goods left for charity.

Mr Ang Soon Huat, 29, who lives in Telok Blangah~ Way, said: "Once, I shouted at one of these fellows when I saw him taking a green bag. He apologised and went away. But a few hours later, the bag was gone."

It is proving to be an ethical dilemma for the project organisers, since they do not not want to deprive the karang guni man of a livelihood.

Mr Ang said some of these men had been making regular rounds in the neighbourhood long before the Green Earth Programme began.

The society’s spokesman said that Transnational even offered bag-collection jobs to some of them, but was turned down. It is up to the residents whom they want to give their old newspapers and clothes to, she said,

"But once the resident decides to put that recyclable waste into the green bags, then it’s clear that it is intended for our programme," she said.

-By Josephine James

Source : The Straits Times, Oct 27, 2000

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