facebookAre there any financial costs if Singapore doesn't practice plastic recycling seriously? We all know about the harm it will do to the environment, but this might not be enough to adopt recycling? - Seedly

Anonymous

16 Oct 2020

Random

Are there any financial costs if Singapore doesn't practice plastic recycling seriously? We all know about the harm it will do to the environment, but this might not be enough to adopt recycling?

Wondering how much it will take before we will take the dangers of climate change and single-use plastics seriously.

Discussion (4)

What are your thoughts?

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I think there's something we can learn from the Taiwan system that I recall... Everyone pays a disposal fee, but you get credits off the next fee when you recycle or dispose of waste appropriately in the right manner (food one side, plastic in plastic corner etc).

Its a bit hard to enforce though, but the system makes sense, so the people who don't play their parts in recycling pay more to subsidize recycling.

The problem is... It won't be a popular system.

Jiayee

16 Oct 2020

Salaryman at some company

The only costs I can think of are the cost to burn and the cost to bury trash...

If there is a large and influential government who will pressure the world to be eco-friendly (not just signing a treaty and failing to fulfil it) then that will be a cost to Singapore too.

As far as I understand, recycling is not cheap... maybe it's because I was trying to organise it at a small scale. When I tried to set up a recycling collection point at my office, recycling vendors want to charge me money for it. Seems like the recyclables themselves could not cover the costs of delivery and manpower.

Anyway, before recycling, I would prefer it if the Singapore government bans merchants from giving plastic bags to customers. Before recycle, think reduce and then reuse.

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