The National Library Board (NLB) is organising the Book Exchange as part of a three-week programme line-up to commemorate the World Book and Copyright Day. Through the annual book-recycling event, NLB hopes to get people to read more widely. The Book Exchange has been supported by Keppel Land since 2011.

With its strong focus on environmental sustainability, Keppel Land is the main sponsor for this book-recycling initiative for the third consecutive year. Mr Ang Wee Gee, Chief Executive Officer of Keppel Land, said, “Keppel Land shares in NLB’s vision of encouraging continued education through reading, while at the same time cultivating a green mindset through Reducing, Reusing and Recycling. This is in line with our commitment to nurture communities, especially the young, as well as ensure minimal harm to the environment.”

From 27 April to 12 May, book lovers can drop off their books at any of the 24 public libraries (with the exception of library@chinatown) between 11.00am and 8.00pm. The collection will be extended till 17 May at the Central Public Library, and till 4pm on 18 May at the event grounds. Fiction and non-fiction books in the four official languages are accepted. A coupon will be issued for each book collected, which can be used to exchange for other books at the main event on 18 May from 8.30am to 6.00pm.

Keppel Land will rally employees from across the Group, as well as their tenants, customers and business associates at nine of its commercial properties and residents of two waterfront properties to donate their used books. Staff volunteers will be volunteering to help with the sorting and displaying of books for the Book Exchange. Coupons which are not taken up by Keppel Land’s tenants and staff will be donated to the Straits Times Pocket Money Fund, Metropolitan YMCA, as well as PAP Community Foundation (PCF) Tanjong Pagar, where Keppel Land staff have been volunteering since April 2012.

During the Book Exchange, NLB’s reading ambassador and author of children’s books, Mr Neil Humphreys, will be conducting storytelling sessions together with his daughter to encourage younger visitors to read.

Source: National Library Board

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Eggs are not the only cash cow for some farms in Singapore.

Chicken droppings are also being put to good use and are converted into biofuels.

At Chew’s Group’s farm in Lim Chu Kang, about 700,000 chickens produce 60 tons of droppings a day.

It’s building a plant, costing about S$5 million that can convert the waste.

It hopes to use this to replace the current practice of treating the fresh manure and selling it to vegetable farmers in Singapore and Malaysia as fertiliser, because the process is expensive and needs a lot of space and manpower.

The first phase of the new plant will be completed by the end of this year and can supply up to 70 per cent of energy needs.

Click here to read the full article.

Source: Channel NewsAsia

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Waste Generated refers to the total amount of waste generated in Singapore, which is the addition of Waste Disposed and Waste Recycled. Waste Disposed refers to the total amount of waste disposed at the four waste-to-energy or incineration plants, and at the offshore Semakau Landfill. Waste Recycled refers to the total amount of waste that is recycled locally or exported overseas for recycling.

In 2012, about 7.3 million tonnes of waste was generated in Singapore, and each person generated around 1,370 kg of waste in a year. The recycling rate in Singapore for 2012 is 60% (59% in 2011), and has been increasing steadily over the years. The government has met its target of 60% recycling rate by 2012 (set in the Singapore Green Plan 2012 published in 2002), and is on track for its recycling target of 65% by 2020 and 70% by 2030 (set in the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint).

40% of Singapore’s waste is still disposed of, with 37.6% going to the waste-to-energy plants for incineration and energy recovery, and 2.7% of non-incinerable waste such as construction and demolition waste, used slag and treated sludge, going to the Semakau Landfill for landfilling.

% Composition of Waste Generated

The top 5 waste types make up 75% of the total waste generated in Singapore, which are either disposed of at the waste-to-energy plants and landfill, or recycled locally and exported:

1. Ferrous Metal (19%)
2. Construction Debris (18%)
3. Paper/Cardboard (17%)
4. Plastics (11%)
5. Food Waste (10%)

% Composition of Waste Disposed

The top 3 waste types make up 65% of the total waste disposed in Singapore:

1. Plastics (25%)
2. Food Waste (21%)
3. Paper/Cardboard (19%)

% Composition of Waste Recycled

The top 3 waste types make up 76% of the total waste recycled in Singapore:

1. Ferrous Metal (31%)
2. Construction Debris (30%)
3. Paper/Cardboard (16%)

Recycling Rate of Waste

For the 3 common types of waste disposed, the recycling rate for plastics and food waste is still low:

• Food Waste (12%)
• Plastics (10%)
• Paper/Cardboard (56%)

More efforts are needed to educate Singaporeans on reducing food waste and the use of plastics, and to increase the recycling of food and plastic waste.

For paper, there is still room for more recycling, as 44% of the paper and cardboard waste generated still ends up being burned at the waste-to-energy plants.

Comparing Recycling Rate of Waste for 2001 and 2012

The recycling rates for different types of waste for 2001 and 2012 are shown in the table below:

Comparing recycling rates for 2001 vs 2012, most of the waste types have shown an improvement in the recycling rate, except for non-ferrous metals and plastics. The recycling rate for non-ferrous metals has dropped from 85% in 2001 to 79% in 2012, however, the recycling rate for non-ferrous metals has always been high in previous years (88% in 2011 and 85% in 2010), so there’s not much of a concern for non-ferrous metals.

On the other hand, the recycling rate for plastics is the same for 2001 and 2012 at 10%, which means there’s not much improvement in plastics recycling over the past 11 years. More effort is needed to educate Singaporeans on reducing the use of plastics and the recycling of plastic waste.

In the Singapore Green Plan 2012 (SGP2012) published in 2002, NEA set a 60% recycling rate by 2012, which it has achieved. NEA also included target recycling rates for the different waste types in SGP2012 (this was not included in the 2006 edition of the SGP2012). Comparing recycling rates for 2012 actual vs 2012 target, the waste types that did not meet the targets include non-ferrous metals, horticultural waste, glass, food waste, and plastics.

Waste Statistics from 2000 to 2012

From 2000 to 2012, the waste disposed has increased by only 5% but the waste recycled has increased by a massive 133%. The total waste generated has increased by 56% from 4.7 million tonnes in 2000 to 7.3 million tonnes in 2012. The waste data show that the efforts of the government in promoting waste recycling has paid off.

Moving forward, food waste and plastics are two waste types that NEA has to pay more attention to, and achieve greater reduction and reycling.

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On Waste:

We have made some changes. We have reduced the number of Public Waste Collection sectors from nine to six in order to improve economies of scale. Again, I am trying to bring the cost of waste collection down whilst recognising that the cost of energy, transport, trucks and all that is also going up.

We are also building a new Waste-to-Energy incineration plant to maximise resource recovery and to reduce landfill space. If I could show the picture of Pulau Semakau, you would see that we already have the area marked out for Phase 2. Again, I can give the House the assurance that we are good to go until 2035. In fact, the beauty of Pulau Semakau is that it is probably the only landfill in the world that is a tourist attraction. Just last December, the Prime Minister himself went there and if you go to his Facebook page, you will find some beautiful pictures of that site. So the point is, it can be done, it will be there for the long term and it can be beautiful at the same time.

Our recycling rate in households, to be honest, is still not good enough. In fact, in survey after survey, people have said they want to recycle but for some reason, this is not translated into practice. We will continue to make recycling facilities more convenient for households by enhancing recycling infrastructure in neighbourhoods. In some new HDB flats, we have even tried to pilot projects with dual-refuse and recycling chutes in order to make it more convenient, and some early data shows that this perhaps may increase recycling rates.

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On Waste Recycling:

Besides the adoption of green innovations and resource-efficient technologies, households can also help push the sustainability agenda through recycling. Currently, our household recycling remains poor, but our recent nationwide study on household recycling behaviour shows that most households actually want to recycle but do not do so for a variety of reasons.

Beyond making it more convenient for households to recycle by enhancing the recycling infrastructure, for example more bins and more collections, my Ministry plans to encourage behavioural change among individuals by providing incentives. Many countries including the United States and Japan charge households according to the weight of waste disposed. To encourage households here to reduce their waste and recycle more, we are currently exploring the feasibility of moving towards a usage-based pricing waste disposal system that will allow households to directly reap the benefits of reducing waste. We will be conducting a few “Save-As-You-Reduce” pilot projects in the Punggol and Bartley areas, involving a small number of HDB blocks, condominiums and landed properties, as well as at the first HDB Greenprint precinct at Yuhua. During these pilots, residents will be regularly informed on how much they have recycled and thrown away.

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In an effort to get shoppers to use fewer plastic bags here, a major retailer has decided to stop providing them in stores.

Come March, customers visiting Swedish furniture giant IKEA at both its Alexandra and Tampines outlets will either have to bring their own bags or purchase its blue reusable bags for their shopping.

The prices of the reusable bags have been reduced to S$0.90 for the large ones and S$0.30 for smaller versions, down from S$1.20 and S$0.60 respectively.

Said its Managing Director Christian Rojkjaer: “This initiative is the next natural step for us to further reduce the use and consumption of disposable plastic bags in Singapore and, at the same time, support change in people’s everyday behaviour for a positive sustainable impact for the environment.”

In 2007, IKEA became the first retailer here to charge for plastic bags.

Proceeds from the 18 million plastic bags sold since the start of the initiative have been donated to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to boost eco-education programmes.

Click here to read the full article.

Source: Today

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Singapore could have an underground landfill to contain about 40 years’ worth of rubbish, a feasibility study has found.

The facility would be in western Singapore and take up about 8 sq km, slightly more than one-hundredth of the country’s land size.

The findings of the government-initiated study were presented last week during the 13th World Conference of the Associated Research Centres for Urban Underground Space, which ended last Friday. Singapore hosted the event for the first time.

Urban Redevelopment Authority group director Richard Hoo said: “We are still at the design and study stages. We have to make sure the cost equation works out.”

Currently, organic waste here is incinerated. The ashes and non-incinerable waste are deposited on Pulau Semakau, an offshore landfill in use since 1999.

Work on the Semakau landfill, which is expected to have a completed capacity of 63 million cubic m, is ongoing.

Click here to read the full story.

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Singapore, 5 Nov 2012 – Save Food Cut Waste is the first campaign in Singapore targeting the reduction of food waste. It is a ground-up movement educating individuals, businesses and organisations in Singapore about the environmental and social impacts of food waste, and encouraging everyone to take action in reducing food waste.

Impacts of Food Waste

According to the Global Food Losses and Food Waste report published in 2011 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about 1.3 billion tonnes or one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year is lost or wasted throughout the supply chain, from production to consumption.

Food that is wasted has several environmental, financial and social impacts. Food waste leads to a waste of resources used in food production and distribution, including land, water, energy, fertilisers, pesticides, labour and capital. Food waste disposal in landfills also produces methane, which is 23 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas and contributes to climate change. More importantly, the food wasted could be used to feed the poor and the nearly one billion malnourished people in the world.

Food Waste in Singapore

In Singapore, food waste is created every day from our food cycle – production, distribution, retail to consumption, and the wastage is unfortunately due to several reasons, such as food spoilage due to improper storage or handling, edible food thrown away because it does not look nice or has ‘expired’, food discards or leftovers during cooking or consumption.

Food waste is generated from our food manufacturers, food distributors, food retailers, wet markets, supermarkets, hawker centres, restaurants, food courts, caterers, and our homes. In fact, Singapore threw away about 0.68 million tonnes of food waste in 2011 and only 10% was recycled. This means on average, each person in Singapore generated about 130kg of food waste a year.

The recycling rate for food waste has dropped from 16% in 2010 to 10% in 2011. So far, the National Environment Agency (NEA) has not initiated any campaigns on reducing or recycling food waste. As such, the food waste recycling rate would remain low over the next few years, and NEA is likely to miss its target of 30% recycling rate for food waste by 2012, set in the Singapore Green Plan 2012.

Tackling Food Waste

To tackle the problem of food waste in Singapore, the first phase of the Save Food Cut Waste campaign aims to educate individuals and households by raising awareness that the problem exists and providing practical tips for everyone to start reducing food waste along our food cycle:

• Grow and Buy – Food production, distribution and purchasing
• Cook and Eat – Food preparation and consumption
• Give and Recycle – Food disposal, redistribution and recycling

Mr Eugene Tay, Co-organiser of Save Food Cut Waste, shares: “Everyone in Singapore loves food! We spend much of our time enjoying delicious food and finding the best makan places in this food paradise. But there’s more to food than just eating. If we love our food, then perhaps we should not waste the food that we get to enjoy every day. We hope that everyone can start to be more conscious about food wastage and take action to reduce food waste in our daily lives and at home.”

The campaign website shares the following 8 tips for individuals and households:

Learn About Food Sources – Learn about where your food comes from and understand how farmers toil to produce your food. This would help you better appreciate the food you eat and thus waste less food.

Grow Your Own Food – Grow your own food in Singapore to better appreciate your food and waste less. This would also help to reduce the food wastage during transportation and storage, the resources spent, and carbon emissions generated from importing food.

Plan What To Buy – Before you go shopping for food, plan what to buy using a shopping list. This would help you avoid buying more food than you need.

Store And Handle Food Properly – Store and handle your food properly at home to help you keep food longer without spoilage, and thus reduce food wastage.

Cook And Order Just Enough – Choose the right food portions and cook just enough food. Also order just enough food, thus avoiding food waste and saving money.

Cook Your Leftover Food – Keep and cook your leftover food instead of throwing them away, thus helping to reduce food wastage at home.

Start Food Composting – Try composting your fruit and vegetable scraps at home or in the community garden, and produce compost for gardening.

Make Garbage Enzyme – Make garbage enzyme from your fruit and vegetable scraps, and use it for cleaning purposes.

The second phase of the Save Food Cut Waste campaign next year aims to explore how businesses and organisations can play their part in reducing food waste.

Visit the Save Food Cut Waste website at http://www.savefoodcutwaste.com/ or the Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/savefoodcutwaste/.

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Save Food Cut Waste is a ground-up movement to educate people, organisations and businesses in Singapore about the environmental and social impacts of food waste, and to encourage them to take action in reducing food waste.

We are starting the campaign in Nov. Meanwhile, connect with us on Facebook and Twitter. Or receive latest updates, tips and recipes by subscribing to our newsletter!

We are looking for volunteers to help out on the campaign website and events from Oct to Dec. Here’s the good people we are looking for:

1) Content Writers: Interview stakeholders on food waste and write tips on reducing food waste

2) Photographers and Videographers: Record interviews with stakeholders, and show problems or solutions on food waste through images and videos

3) Graphic Designers: Design and layout for web and print

4) Ambassadors: Helping out at events and talks to spread the message on food waste

If you are interested to volunteer, please fill up this form. Thanks and look forward to working together in reducing food waste in Singapore!

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The message of Recycling Week is that waste is a resource that can be converted into new products, and anyone can easily do their part for resource conservation by segregating their waste into recyclables and non-recyclables at home. Practising the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) will reduce the demand on our limited land and sea space for disposal facilities, thereby extending the lifespan of the Semakau Landfill, and paving the way for more sustainable development.

Recycling Week 2012’s main event took place on 9 September 2012. Held at the open field next to Jurong East Bus Interchange, the event was officiated by Second Minister for Environment and Water Resources, Grace Fu. Fringe activities to this main event will follow at other dates and locations (refer to Annex A for more details).

To help residents recognise items that can be recycled and segregate recyclables from normal waste at home, participants at the Recycling Week main event went through stations at a ‘Kitchen’ booth which included activities to physically segregate recyclables from a pool of household items and to learn 3Rs tips in the kitchen. Residents were reminded of the do’s and don’ts of recycling. For instance, items contaminated with food and liquid waste should not be thrown into the blue recycling bins in our housing estates.

At the ‘Kitchen’ booth, the participants were given goodie bags which contain an informative educational brochure with information on the common types of recyclables found at home and the simple steps of recycling among other freebies.

A slew of activities such as competitions were also lined up at the event so that participants of all ages can understand and experience recycling for themselves. Activities included exchanging recyclables for cash and field trips to waste-to-energy and sorting plants made available through on-the-spot sign up by participants. Exhibition booths showcasing creative items made from recycled materials and activity booths to teach residents to make terrariums were also part of the event. HDB also hosted a booth displaying their Greenprint, which outlines the green features HDB has in store for estates such as Jurong East.

Fringe activities include environment themed storytelling sessions and recycled craft workshops at National Library Board branches, on 16 and 23 September 2012 and avenues for the public to bring their e-waste for recycling on 15 and 16 September 2012 at the NEA 10th Anniversary Eco-Community exhibition at HDB Hub Atrium in Toa Payoh.

Recycling Week 2012 is organised as part of a ground-up initiative. With similar objectives as Recycling Week, NEA also facilitates community events such as Eco Day Out 2012 @ South West held early this year. Besides increasing awareness of recycling in the community, Eco Day Out 2012 @ South West also incorporated a social objective, with the Clean-Up South West recycling drive raising a total of $60,000, including generous donations from Lee Foundation, Koh Kock Leong Enterprise Pte Ltd, Sumitomo Chemical and affiliated companies to benefit St Luke’s Eldercare Centre (Clementi).

CEO of NEA, Mr Andrew Tan, said, “We want to encourage the community to take ownership of their environment and start their own ground-up initiatives. Through outreach activities such as Recycling Week, we hope to engage the community to do their part to conserve our resources – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle – and help make Singapore’s living environment more sustainable.”

Annex A

Recycling Week 2012 Fringe Activities

National Library Board 3Rs Education and Outreach

• The National Library Board (NLB) is one of the NEA’s key 3P partners in spreading the 3Rs message to the community.
• Various NLB branches will be holding storytelling sessions or recycled craft workshops on the environment and 3Rs themes.
• A new Green Library for Kids will be built at the Central Public Library in the year 2013, and 2 trial sessions of Green Stories and Crafts will be held on 16 and 23 September 2012. This hour-long session includes a storytelling session and a recycled craft workshop.
• The other NLB branches are scheduled to have storytelling sessions throughout the month of September.

E-Waste Take Back Programme

• The public can bring their unwanted E-waste (computers, printers, mobile phones, IT products, cartridges, and small home appliances) to the Recycling Week event on 9 September 2012 or to the NEA 10th Anniversary Eco-Community exhibition on 15 – 16 September 2012, 11am – 8pm at HDB Hub, Toa Payoh.
• E-waste recycling enables the recovery of precious resources such as metals and plastics, and minimises waste disposal at our incineration plants and landfill.
• Companies supporting this e-waste recycling activity include Canon, Cimelia, Dell, Epson, HP, Nokia, SingTel and Tes-Amm.

Keppel Club Exhibition

• The public can also check out exquisite creative craft work made from recycled materials at the exhibition held from 20 – 25 October 2012, 9am – 5pm, at Keppel Hall, Keppel Club.

Source: NEA

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