In Oct 2009, a friend informed Zero Waste Singapore about the disposal of wishing spheres for the Marina Bay Singapore Countdown. We have seen the spheres before but never asked what happened to them after the year-end countdown party.

The Wishing Sphere Project is a significant component of the Marina Bay SINGAPORE Countdown. Members of the community are all invited to join in the project by penning their wish for the New Year on a wishing sphere. Each wishing sphere represents a hope, a belief that the New Year will bring new possibilities and the promise of a brighter tomorrow.

We will mark your wish by floating the wishing spheres onto the waters of Marina Bay, our bay of hope and light. To meet the growing demand for wishing spheres as more people come onboard this meaningful annual tradition, we have doubled the number of wishing spheres to 20,000 spheres this year! – Marina Bay Singapore Countdown

We were told that after the countdown, the wishing spheres made of plastic PVC are disposed of and sent to the incineration plant. The wishing spheres have been disposed of every year – 5,500 in 2007, 10,000 in 2008 and 20,000 in 2009 (soon). This is a waste of resources and results in more carbon and dioxins emissions.

The suggestion given by our friend was to organise a petition to get the organisers to do something about this waste. However, we feel that a different approach was needed given the short time that we had. So we decided to meet up with the organisers, Esplanade, to discuss and work towards a win-win solution for Esplanade and the environment.

We had a fruitful discussion with the Esplanade staff, where we emphasised the importance of the 3Rs – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle (in order of sequence). Given the short timeframe, the immediate focus was to reuse and recycle the spheres for this year’s event. And to start now to explore how to reduce the waste and pollution for next year’s event.

We provided the following suggestions and contacts:

Reduce

1) Look for more environmentally friendly material

• Residues and Resource Reclamation Centre, NTU
• SIMTech, Sustainability and Technology Assessment
• Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Environment and Water Technology Centre of Innovation
• Companies providing biodegradable plastic products

2) Cap or reduce number of spheres

Reuse

3) Reuse for art by schools and organisations

• Didier Ng
• Hansart

4) Give to local or foreign orphanages, children homes, NGOs

5) Reuse to make new products such as bags

• Kare Social Enterprise, ITE College East
• Watsan Action, Indonesia

Recycle

6) Send it to a recycling company to process into raw material

We searched for recycling contractors that collect plastic PVC waste and contacted them. We finally found a recycling contractor who was interested in collecting the spheres, and gave the contacts to Esplanade.

In Nov 2009, Esplanade decided to send the 20,000 wishing spheres for recycling after the countdown. The recycling contractor will export the plastic spheres for recycling. Recycling the plastic spheres might not be the best solution but it’s still better than sending them to the incineration plant. Kudos to the Esplanade staff for taking the first step to reduce waste and do their part for the environment.

It’s actually not that difficult to reduce your waste, sometimes it only takes the right advice and contacts. If you’re organising an event where large amounts of waste are being generated, remember the 3Rs in waste management and reduce, reuse or recycle your waste. And of course, Zero Waste Singapore is available if you need help.

Have a great 2010 and let us work towards a Zero Waste Singapore!

Images credit: Marina Bay Countdown 2009/10 – chooyutshing via Flickr; Wishing Spheres – chooyutshing via Flickr

Nokia has the largest voluntary mobile phone recycling scheme worldwide, with takeback and collection facilities in over 5,000 Nokia Care Centres across 85 countries.

In Singapore, Nokia currently has collection points in all Nokia Care Centres at Wheelock Place, Century Square, Parkway Parade, Causeway Point and Suntec City. Take back facilities are also available in NUS, NTU, SMU, Nanyang Polytechnic, Temasek Polytechnic, St Margaret Secondary, St Hilda Primary and Secondary, and Saint Andrew JC.

In July 2008, Nokia launched the deployment of the Nokia Recycling Kiosks (NRK), which are automated recycling kiosks, in Malaysia and Singapore. Nokia is also running the ‘Recycle A Phone & Adopt A Tree’ program in Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. With every phone sent for recycling, customers will receive a tree in their name planted under the NEWTrees initiative. This is a collaboration between Nokia, WWF Indonesia and Equinox Publishing, and Nokia has committed funds towards the planting of 100,000 trees in Indonesia.

In Singapore, Nokia is working with TES-AMM to recycle raw materials from the mobile phones collected. The raw materials recovery rate at TES-AMM is as high as 99%. Many different materials and precious metals can be recycled from mobile phones and made into new products, including:

• Plastic: Plastic is largely used on the covers and external parts of a mobile device. They are turned into plastic pallets to be used in warehousing.
• Stainless Steel: This is used on external detailing phone covers and some internal components. It can be recycled and used again in all sorts of products from mobile devices, to kitchen kettles, ovens and in bicycle frames.
• Copper: Copper is used in a mobile phone’s circuitry and printed wiring boards. It can be recycled into copper pipes or to make musical instruments.
• Gold: Small amounts of gold are used in a mobile phone to coat connectors and electrical surfaces. It can be recycled and used again in other mobile and electronic devices, dental fillings or to make jewellery.
• Platinum: This is used in the electrical components of a mobile phones. It can be reclaimed and used in catalytic convertors for passenger cars, for equipment, dental filling or in jewellery.
• Cobalt and lithium salt: These rare earth metals are recovered from recycled batteries and are re-made into lithium ion batteries.

Here are some photos taken during the site visit at TES-AMM’s recycling facility:

Mobile phone recycling

Manual dismantling of old mobile phones

Sorting of components

Crushing of circuit boards and sieving

Ferrous metal separation

Crushed circuit boards

Crushed circuit boards undergo hammer mill and electrostatic separation to get:

Fibrous powder (for making plastic pallets)

Metal powder (contains 60-70% copper)

Fibrous powder and other waste plastics used to make plastic pallets by heat extrusion

Chemical processes to extract gold from components

Gold melting

Li-ion battery recycling

It is amazing how some banks waste resources in their marketing campaigns. One example is when banks send pre-approved credit cards to their customers, even though their customers never ask for those cards.

The photo above shows all the material inside a single envelope by DBS, including the letter, pre-approved credit card, brochures, card agreement, and discount vouchers. Customers who are not interested in the credit cards offered by the banks simply throw them away, hopefully into recycling bags or bins.

Imagine the envelopes, letters, brochures and credit cards that go to waste, just because the banks simply chose to throw them at their customers without asking them if they want the credit cards in the first place. These banks are not only wasting resources and money but also ending up irritating their customers.

Are you one of those banks? It’s time to rethink and do things differently (hint: read Seth Godin’s books for help).

This post was first published at Green Business Times.

Image source: Clean and Green Singapore

To be frank, we don’t have all the answers. To us, all items can be recycled technically. But whether the items actually get collected for recycling depends on the National Environment Agency (NEA), the recycling collectors and the market for the recyclables. Some collection companies do not collect certain items as there are only small quantities, whereas other items are not collected because there is no market for them.

We think the best way to answer your enquiries is to start a new initiative called Can Recycle? If you’re not sure whether an item can be recycled, take a photo of the item (please try to keep each photo below 200 KB) and post the photo on our Facebook page. Write Can Recycle? in the title and a brief description of the item.

We will consolidate the enquiries each month and check with NEA on whether the items can be recycled. We will also create a Can Recycle? section on our website, which serves as a database where you an check what items can be recycled.

Next time when you’re wondering: Can Recycle? Remember to take a photo of the item and post it on Facebook. We will do our best to check and give you an answer.

Singapore, 5 June 2009 – A $15 million Environment Technology Research Programme (ETRP) has been launched by the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, as part of the Environment and Water Industry Development Council (EWI) and National Environment Agency (NEA)’s joint efforts to develop capabilities in waste management.

The ETRP is an initiative to build up technological competencies in waste management and to support a growing ecosystem of companies and researchers undertaking Clean Environment Research and Development (R&D). It will provide funding support for Singapore-based companies, research institutes (RIs) and Institute of Higher Learning (IHLs) to develop, pilot and commercialise advanced technologies for waste management. Through ETRP, the Ministry hopes to catalyse and incubate indigenous, sustainable and cost-efficient waste management solutions that are not only applicable locally but can also be exported to other cities facing similar waste challenges.

Administered by EWI and NEA, the $15 million research fund will be deployed over three years. Most of the research activities are required to be carried out in Singapore to facilitate knowledge sharing and technology transfer to Singapore environmental industry. EWI will call for the first Request-For-Proposal (RFP) in July 2009 and subsequently another one in January 2010. The RFP will be scheduled for twice a year, in January and July.

The ETRP awards grants to R&D projects on a competitive basis in the field of waste management and will help boost entities that are involved in waste management research, specifically in the areas of energy recovery, material recovery and special waste treatment. Promising areas of research could range from ways to increase thermal efficiency of incineration processes, technologies to increase recyclable yield of high-value waste streams and methods to remediate old landfills rapidly and safely.

To bridge the gap between upstream research and commercialization of the end-product, NEA will open up key facilities such as waste-to-energy plants and landfills to test-bed and validate the new technologies. This will provide opportunities for companies to test and adapt new solutions in Singapore before exporting them globally.

Waste Management Market

With increasing affluence and population growth, the sustainable and efficient management of waste has become a key challenge for land-scarce cities like Singapore. The waste management market worldwide is projected to grow from US$230 billion in 2005 to about US$320 billion in 2015 . A large part of this growth concentrated in developing economies where the volume of waste generated is growing exponentially. The Asian market for waste infrastructure and technology, which is expected to grow at an annual rate of 10-12%, is a growth area that Singapore can tap into.

“The ETRP will support the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint by developing new capabilities to support our future economic and population growth in the area of clean environment. With our decades of successful experience in waste management, there is also growing interest in Singapore’s approach to waste management. We hope to work with the industry to promote our capabilities overseas,” said Mr Andrew Tan, Senior Deputy Executive Director of EWI, MEWR and CEO, NEA.

This final part explores the opportunities for reducing the generation of Paper/Cardboard and Plastics waste. We will look at campaigns, companies, services, projects and tips that help to reduce paper and plastic waste.

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Opportunities for Paper Waste Reduction

We think that there is great potential to reduce our paper mail and junk mail, and also switch to duplex printing.

epost by Canada Post

Canada Post offers a free epost box. With epost, users can have bills and other mailers sent to them electronically and allows them to view and store them online.

Zumbox

Zumbox is a paperless postal system that provides a virtual mailbox for every street address in the United States, which allows users to receive, view, organize, store and send their mail online.

Red Dot Campaign

The Red Dot Campaign is a social marketing campaign in Canada to encourage advertisers to reduce waste and resources in paper-based advertising, and evaluate their current marketing strategies.

Stop Junk Mail

Stop Junk Mail is a non-profit UK-based group giving advice on how to reduce junk mail. They also provide ‘No junk mail’ stickers for households to paste on their door and letterbox to stop unaddressed leaflets and/or free newspapers.

Voluntary Admail Reduction Program

This Voluntary Admail Reduction Program is a by-law of the City of Ottawa to regulate the distribution of unaddressed advertising material. The by-law states that:

No distributor shall distribute or cause to be distributed any unaddressed advertising material on private property if the owner or occupant of the property has affixed a sign in a conspicuous way on his or her own property, as prescribed in accordance with Schedule “A” to this by-law indicating that he or she does not wish to receive any unaddressed advertising material.

The property owner or occupant can participate in the program by purchasing a sticker to indicate their desire not to receive unaddressed advertising material.

Duplex Printing

One of the easiest way to save paper in the office is to set the printer on default to print on both sides of a sheet of paper. Here’s a guide to show you the steps for setting your printer to duplex printing.

Check out more tips on reducing paper.

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Opportunities for Plastics Waste Reduction

We think that there is great potential to reduce our use of plastic bottles, plastic bags and plastic packaging.

Tap

Tap is an ethical enterprise and campaign to get people to rethink bottled water and switch to water from the tap.

Tappening

Tappening is a campaign to educate the public about the unnecessary waste of resources and harm on the environment caused by the bottled water industry, and to encourage people to drink tap water and say no to bottled water.

Are You Ready?

This is the National Plastic Bag Campaign in Australia to help individuals and retailers move towards a phase-out or reduction in plastic bag use.

The Positive Package

The Positive Package is a campaign to share information on reducing, reusing and recycling packaging.

The Guide to Evolving Packaging Design

The online Guide to Evolving Packaging Design provides ideas, tips and tools to help retailers and manufacturers change the way packaging is produced and used.

The National Packaging Covenant

The National Packaging Covenant is a voluntary initiative by the government and industry in Australia to reduce the environmental effects of packaging.

Check out more tips to reduce plastics by avoiding disposable items and choosing products with less packaging.

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We encourage more individuals, communities, NGOs, businesses and the government to explore the mentioned opportunities to reduce the waste output of Food Waste, Paper/Cardboard and Plastics. There is potential for more awareness, campaigns, governmental and business services to reduce our waste. For a start, the new 3R Fund would be useful for providing financial support to implement these waste reduction opportunities.

Read Part One, Part Two and Part Three.