SINGAPORE: A fire broke out at a private home at 57 Stirling Road on Sunday afternoon (Jan 29). 

The Singapore Civil Defence Force said on Facebook it was alerted to the incident at  57 Stirling Rd and dispatched 2 fire engines, 1 Red Rhino, 2 fire bikes, 1 support vehicle and an ambulance to the scene.

Firefighters used four water jets to tacke the blaze which involved the contents on both floors of the two-storey terrace house.

A firefighter helping to extinguish the fire at a 2-storey terrace house on Stirling Raod. (Photo: Facebook/ SCDF) 

SCDF said it prevented the fire from spreading to the adjacent houses and extinguished it within half an hour.

“A total of 12 residents were evacuated by the SCDF, including an elderly bedridden woman from an adjacent house. There were no reported injuries as a result of the fire,” SCDF said.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated. 

SINGAPORE – More than 300,000 refrigerators are thrown out in Singapore every year – including during the annual Chinese New Year spring-cleaning.

What’s not widely known, is that many of the waste disposal companies that handle them do not have the know-how to safely extract and recycle the toxic gases in this common household appliance, despite guidelines from the National Environment Agency.

This is revealed in an investigation by Channel NewsAsia’s new documentary The Trash Trail, which premieres on Monday, Jan 30.

Household appliances that are to be incinerated must be stripped of all recyclable materials, including compressors, which contain toxic refrigerant gases like Freon, which are harmful to one’s health and to the environment.

But when Trash Trail observed the situation at a neighbourhood bin centre, as well as at a facility run by one of Singapore’s largest public waste collectors, it found that discarded refrigerators were simply dismantled or crushed. This destroys the compressors, and causes refrigerant gas to be vented into the atmosphere.

Each discarded refrigerator contains the same amount of toxic greenhouse gases produced by a car being driven from Singapore to Johor Bahru.

Trash Trail also observed that the workers at a bin centre do not wear respirator masks or other forms of protection when dismantling the refrigerators.

Watch: Why your old fridge is a threat (1:51)

Electronics waste consultant and managing director of Vans Chemistry, Mr Venkatesha Murthy, said: “It has to be properly extracted from the compressor and it has to be incinerated or recovered back in an enclosed manner.”

Over time, direct exposure to the gases can cause asthmatic symptoms, skin allergies and mental disorders, he warned.

When asked how they dealt with the compressors, Mr Phillip Lim, operations director of environmental services provider 800 Super, said: “Once we crush it, they would release the gas, but it’s not harmful anyway.”

Mr Murthy blames the industry’s callous treatment of refrigerant gases on the lack of awareness.

“They (waste collectors) are only interested to take out the good parts, as long as they are able to sell, they are happy about it,” he said. “The key problem is that they are not aware of what is inside this electronic stuff, like toxic metals and chemicals.”

FOLLOWING THE MURKY TRAIL

According to NEA’s list of more than 50 private companies that run recycling facilities, only one, Vemac Services, offers refrigerant gas removal services, as of the time of this report.

Vemac Services, which claims to be Singapore’s only facility that owns a specialised refrigerant gas extraction machine, said they only extract refrigerant gases from industrial cooling units, as household refrigerators do not contain enough gas to justify the operation costs.

But what if your old refrigerator is removed by the retailer you bought your new replacement from – where does it end up? According to a survey of 1,000 people that Trash Trail commissioned, 40 per cent hand off their old refrigerators to retailers when they purchase a newer model.

One retailer, Parisilk, said that they receive up to 200 old appliances in a month, including refrigerators. They said that in recent years, they have had difficulty finding a waste collector that will accept the white goods.

Mr Murthy said that many discarded refrigerators also end up being removed by the informal sector – that is, unlicensed waste collectors –  and few know how the Freon and toxic gases are being handled or disposed of.  

Trash Trail investigated by tagging 30 old refrigerators with GPS trackers – and found that a number made their way out of Singapore, in what one expert is concerned constitutes e-waste dumping.

NEA CONDUCTING STUDY TO DEVELOP OPTIONS FOR E-EWASTE

When contacted, NEA said that “bulky home appliance like refrigerators and washing machines, are mostly sent to second-hand dealers or facilities to recover the constituent metals”.
On refrigerant gases, NEA added: “While there is no obligation under the international treaty to prevent venting of refrigerant gases, Singapore encourages the recycling and re-use of the refrigerants used in industrial and commercial systems.”

When released into the atmosphere, refrigerant gases like Freon and its newer counterpart hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) can exacerbate climate change.

Mr Murthy stressed the need for formal regulations in the e-waste recycling industry, aside from general policies like the Environmental Protection Act.

In a response to Trash Trail’s findings, NEA said it is currently conducting a study to develop options for an e-waste management system. It cited the examples of Taiwan, South Korea, Europe and the United States, which “ensure that the costs of proper end-of-life management of electrical and electronic products are borne by the appropriate stakeholders”.

A recent United Nations study highlighted Singapore as one of Asia’s biggest producers of e-waste per capita, at 19 kg per person in 2015. The report also urged countries to improve recycling and disposal methods.

The Trash Trail premieres on Monday, Jan 30, at 7.30pm (SG/HK) with two episodes back to back about what happens to discarded refrigerators and disposable cups.

The series is part of the CNA Signatures belt showcasing innovative programmes. 

SINGAPORE: It began in a mask carver’s workshop in Kathmandu, Nepal. 

Jamon Mok, a fresh business graduate from Singapore Management University (SMU), was running a micro-social venture capital fund called Gazaab Social Ventures that awarded grants to rural entrepreneurs in Nepal through business competitions to carry out their ideas. 

In his first year of college in 2009, Mr Mok founded Gazaab with two other SMU students, Nepalese brothers Anil and Akash Gurung. For four years, they led teams of students in expeditions to organise such competitions, supporting small business owners in bringing their communities out of poverty.

But as they looked to expand the project into a full-fledged social enterprise, they found their seed funding – a few hundred thousand dollars – fell short of the estimated S$5 million they needed for the model to be sustainable as a business.

Searching for new ideas, the founders revisited some of their beneficiaries to figure out how they could still invest the resources to make an impact. That was when one of the craftsmen, a wood carver with more than 10 years of experience, spontaneously offered Mr Mok and Mr Anil Gurung a lesson on the spot. 

“We sat down in the back alley with him, covered in wood shavings to just learn at the feet of a master for five to six hours,” Mr Mok recounted.

“Our hands were sore, our feet were sore, but it was a magical experience to be able to know someone there, sat in that alley. It was authentic, a real experience with tradition, with culture, with craft. At the end, we felt like we made a friend.”

Backstreet Academy co-founder Anil Gurung (left) with Kedar Dhanuki, a master woodcarver. (Photo: Jamon Mok)

A MODEL OF EMPOWERMENT

Mr Mok, 28, is now the chief executive officer of Backstreet Academy, a “peer-to-peer impact travel online platform for unique experiences in developing countries”. 

The encounter with Nepalese woodcarver Kedar Dhanuki made a deep impression on the founders and was the spark that inspired Mr Mok and the Gurung brothers to refocus their business on tourism entrepreneurs in March 2014, he told Channel NewsAsia. 

Backstreet Academy sells one simple but compelling idea – learning from locals in their own countries. 

Instead of visiting museums or heritage sites, visitors might opt to spend a day forging a traditional Lao knife, fishing with a net on the Mekong river or cooking dishes popular among Nepal’s famed Gurkha warriors. 

Mr Mok said the social enterprise was a way the founders felt that they could contribute to the world and work towards helping those in poverty. 

“We feel like it has to be a model of empowerment rather than, say, handouts,” he said on the vision for the platform.

“If we can motivate them and give them a platform to develop their own kind of businesses, their own kind of projects, initiatives where they can take ownership and grow it, they will really be empowered and inspired to take it forward themselves and also motivate and inspire the rest of the community to the same.”

From just one experience in Kathmandu, the platform now lists more than 1,200 activities in 40 cities across 10 countries in Asia. 

It features experiences hosted by more than 1,000 locals across the region – the majority of whom have increased their incomes by two or three times and moved out of poverty since signing up – as well as local managers and a pool of freelance translators in each country, Mr Mok said. 

According to the entrepreneur, Backstreet Academy operates under a “fair revenue share” policy. For each booking, hosts receive 50 to 60 per cent of the revenue, translators take 10 to 15 per cent and the transport operator earns 10 to 15 per cent. The remainder – which can range from 5 to 15 per cent – is the platform’s share. 

Photos courtesy of Backstreet Academy.

BRIDGING GAPS

The appeal of “authentic”, off-the-beaten-track travel – a natural counterpoint to mass tourism and all of its trappings – has been around for many years. 

With rising affluence in many countries and the advent of budget airlines, an entire middle class has been raised with more access to travel than ever – and their craving for novel experiences is being met by a growing number of online-based businesses. 

Airbnb was arguably the most globally influential in popularising the use of peer-to-peer platforms for travel with the launch of its hugely successful home renting service in 2008. 

Many other travel-related services have sprung up in the past three to four years. Some examples include Plate Culture and Traveling Spoon, which offer home-cooked meals by local hosts, and I Like Local and Withlocals, which also promote a range of local experiences from farm stays to volunteering opportunities. 

Mr Mok says Backstreet Academy is different. For one, it focuses on people in poverty in developing countries who often don’t speak English or have access to advanced technology. 

“When we go to such places, when we want to learn from someone who is really a master – a master woodcarver, a master fisherman, someone who does really interesting art – chances are most of these people can’t speak English. They can’t use technology in many of the cases, and they’re just not accessible to most people,” he said. 

A visitor trying his hand at fishing with a net on the Mekong river in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. (Photo: Backstreet Academy)

Unlike other platforms, Backstreet Academy has found ways to overcome these barriers, Mr Mok said. 

They have a local translation network in each city – when a booking request comes in, the host gets a translated call or SMS in their local language with the relevant details and can confirm the booking immediately, even on their feature phones. 

The booking then goes out to a vetted pool of translators – including students or part-time guides – who will bid for the job of bridging the gap between the hosts and guests. 

The model seems to be paying off. For a startup less than three years old, it boasts an impressive resume: 25,000 to 30,000 tourists hosted, TripAdvisor certificates of excellence in several cities including Siem Reap, Phnom Penh, Hanoi and Luang Prabang and features in global publications like National Geographic and Conde Nast Traveler. 

Backstreet Academy also became profitable in the past few months, Mr Mok told Channel NewsAsia. They are steadily expanding and looking to venture into Myanmar and Africa next, he added.

In November last year, Airbnb started offering a similar service under their new feature, Trips, touting “hidden gems” led by local experts such as violin-making in Paris or marathon-running in Kenya. 

But Mr Mok said he did not feel threatened by the market leader’s entrance into the field.

“It’s fine,” he said laughing, “because they don’t have Southeast Asia like we do. We have Southeast Asia. They can eat up the rest of the competition.”

MAKING AN IMPACT

Speaking to Channel NewsAsia at SMU, where he first stepped into the world of social entrepreneurship, Mr Mok said he knew blazing his own path was the best way for him even before university. 

“Ever since I was 19 or 20, I decided that being my own boss was the only way I could choose what I want to do and how I want to do it, and bring a measurable impact on the world.”

While he said running his own business was definitely not as glamourous as people might think – he spends most of the year working abroad and only returns to Singapore a few days every one or two months – Mr Mok said his belief in what he was doing tided him through the difficult times. 

His advice for budding social entrepreneurs: “Understand the kind of audience that you want to create a product for, the communities that you want to help and see what their real needs are. It is only with that, that you get the kind of motivation that will bring you through the tough days and get you to create a product or service that helps people and makes a difference.”

(Photo: Winnie Goh)

Follow Melissa Zhu on Twitter @MelissaZhuCNA

SINGAPORE: “My parents are suffering.”

“I love them so much.”

“They’ve lost so much because of me.”

He takes some time to put these sentences together, repeating words and slurring slightly as he habitually pushes his glasses up his nose. The spectacles don’t sit well with his sunken left temple and the palm-sized, surgically-inserted titanium plate holding it up.

On the same side, his limited field of vision causes his burly frame to teeter left sporadically as he ambles along the Pandan River towards home in Jurong East. He quickens his pace as storm clouds gather overhead. “It’s going to rain.”

Twelve years ago, a few hundred metres away, it was pouring when Lee Wei Kong, Anglo-Chinese Junior College rugby captain, sprinted through a pedestrian crossing to catch the bus – and was bulldozed by an oncoming taxi.

His severe, traumatic head and spinal injuries needed three major operations within a week. At first, doctors gave him no chance of survival. Then he woke from a 17-day coma, and they said he would be a vegetable.

Today, 29-year-old Wei Kong walks, talks, works as an artist and is married with two daughters.

“A rare, successful outcome” was how his first surgeon described it, said his father Lee Swee Chit, who in 2006 sued the taxi driver’s insurers and has received some S$800,000 in damages since.

It is little compensation for what the Lee family has had to endure. “I’ve been very hurt. It threw my life into torture (sic),” said Wei Kong.

“It’s been tough,” said Swee Chit, 57. “A lot of pain… A lot of perseverance. I’m very proud he’s come so far. But there’s still a long way.”

The elder Lee’s dimpled, amiable disposition darkens when recalling Wei Kong’s most intensive period of rehabilitation.

“He couldn’t even talk. He couldn’t even walk. This is something we wouldn’t even want to happen to the worst of our enemies.”

After Wei Kong was discharged from a six-month hospital stay, the Lees started him on a daily physiotherapy regime. It proved arduous even for a teenager at peak physical condition, who had excelled in rugby since his primary school days and earned a call-up to the national under-19 squad.

Wei Kong holds up a photo of himself in secondary school. 

“He was crying… He couldn’t talk then, so he would shout,” said Swee Chit, a manager at an engineering firm. “But he was also very determined. He had fighting spirit.”

Still, at his lowest, Wei Kong’s frustration would threaten to overwhelm. “Sometimes he just wanted to give up. That was difficult for us,” said Swee Chit, his voice quivering.

“But we took it day by day. We would bring him to the Botanic Gardens, to West Coast Park to walk in the middle of the night, when not many people were there. Two of us would be at his side to hold him, and make sure he didn’t fall over.”

“When he finally could… It was one of the happiest moments of our life, to see him able to walk on his own.”

Speech came slowly to Wei Kong, who spent nearly two years using sign language and drawings to communicate.

That wasn’t the end of his recovery process. “We never believed in letting him stay still,” said his mother Ho Siew Phin. “Whenever we had the chance, we wanted to push him as far as possible.”

His right hand, which he used to score a distinction in O-level art, remained paralysed. Despite the physiotherapist’s advice to focus on his left, his parents insisted on training the once-dominant hand, and it paid off: Not only did it start to move again, Wei Kong discovered he could still draw with it.

Another of his works at the Westlite dormitory.

He would go on to hold several art exhibitions, which later served as a portfolio for his admission to the Lasalle College of the Arts in 2007.

“Nobody else wanted to take him,” admitted Swee Chit. “We approached ITE (Institute of Technical Education) first, and they didn’t accept him because they couldn’t have someone looking after him in school.”

For the next three years, that someone was Wei Kong’s mother, 56. She would attend classes with him, record everything, listen to the tapes at home, teach him again, and help with homework.

As Ms Ho, who stopped work as a kindergarten teacher for seven years to care for Wei Kong, put it: “Three people graduated with one diploma in fine art.”

Once he could walk, Wei Kong’s father began re-teaching him how to swim and cycle – though with no small amount of fretting.

“Even walking, every now and then he falls down. When he goes swimming he knocks his head. And in cycling he falls so often… He doesn’t listen. He likes to speed. He doesn’t know the dangers. He will shoot past a red traffic light five out of 10 times.”

“I follow lah,” Wei Kong laughs.

Brain injuries from the accident changed Wei Kong’s character and behaviour, his father explained.

“His judgement is not there. He doesn’t think much of consequences. Whatever he wants to say, he says. Whatever he wants to do, he must do.”

And Wei Kong, who still undergoes half-yearly medical assessments, is gentle by nature but now has trouble controlling his anger.

“Physically, he’s there; but mentally he’s a bit slow.”

“Because he looks normal, it’s caused much misunderstanding with people. Like when he goes to the market to buy food, I can see the vendor is thinking, ‘Why are you trying to be funny, speaking so slowly?’ He will also make the vendor very frustrated when he cannot make up his mind.”

Wei Kong at work.

When talking about his job – painting murals at the Westlite workers’ dormitory in Jurong – Wei Kong laments his “art is not very good now” and that God wants him to become a pastor.

It prompts a stern lecture from his father. “Wei Kong, your boss wants you to come in the morning to work, and go back in the evening like a normal person. So you don’t have to depend on your parents.”

“You must believe you are a normal person. You must behave like a normal person.”

“I am.”

After Wei Kong graduated from Lasalle, his parents could not find a suitable art-related job for him. So they decided to be less concerned with the nature of work than with him being gainfully employed.

Between 2010 and 2015, Wei Kong tried more than 10 different jobs. None lasted more than six months.

“At first he was waiting tables, but his coordination was not so good and he tended to break things. He broke a plate costing more than his salary, and it was also difficult to train him to accept orders,” said Swee Chit.

“After that, he was washing, cleaning tables at a hawker centre. It was so sad for me to see…”

“I cried seeing him do that,” said Ms Ho, her eyes reddening.

“But I didn’t mind,” her husband continued. “If he has to suffer, to make himself employed… I would ask him to do it. But even this job didn’t last long.”

“Usually, when I approach an employer, they don’t mind helping. But after knowing his limitations, they come tell me ‘Sorry, it’s not working out, Wei Kong is more of a hindrance than a help’.”

“He likes to talk to other people and disturb them while they’re working. Then he just thinks why are people not talking to him. He doesn’t understand working culture. He doesn’t understand social norms.”

“I can now,” Wei Kong muttered.

The walls at the Westlite workers’ dormitory in Toh Guan are filled with his paintings.

He has, however, lasted two years in his current job at Westlite, which was given to him by a fellow church member and pays about S$1,800 a month.

“You cannot get an understanding employer like this,” said Swee Chit, adding that Wei Kong’s direct supervisor was sent for a course on handling autism.

“The company doesn’t even need to paint the walls… They were good enough to bend their policy to accommodate him.”

“I’m very thankful and grateful.”

“If more companies in Singapore are willing to be more flexible with low-functioning people, there’s hope for many of them,” Swee Chit declared.

He said the biggest positive for his son is the feeling of contributing to family.

“He still has a certain pride and dignity. When he was rugby captain from primary to secondary school to junior college, he was always the alpha male. And that’’s not lost in him.” 

“The frustration is that he cannot be an alpha male today, but at least with the work now, he is helping the family, and that makes him hopeful there’s a future for him.”

Wei Kong is teaching his youngest daughter, Emma, how to say “thank you” in Mandarin. “She’s clever, everybody says so.” He offers the one-year-old a drink, lifts her on his lap, and gives her a tender kiss on the forehead.

“I hope Emma and Esther (the older daughter, 3) can grow well and do work properly.” He turns and whispers: “And I want a son.”

Wei Kong’s courtship and eventual marriage to China native Chen Xiaoli, 28, was initiated by his parents back in 2011.

“Knowing his situation, we didn’t want him to go out there and anyhow get anybody,” Swee Chit explained. “And my wife had a colleague from China, who had a niece, who didn’t mind.”

The Lees flew to China to meet Ms Chen’s family and colleagues. “As a nurse, Xiaoli’s seen a lot of these cases so she can understand Wei Kong’s position,” said Swee Chit.

The couple married in 2013. Although they still live with Mr and Mrs Lee – as well as Wei Kong’s younger sister LeAnn who works as a lawyer – they will have their own flat in July.

“When his daughters grow up… Everything will be good,” said Swee Chit.

Outside of family and church, Wei Kong has little by way of social circles. “I’m losing my companionship with a lot of my contacts on Facebook and Whatsapp,” he complained.

Said his father: “He makes friends easily and loses friend easily, because he gets very demanding. He still hasn’t learned how to interact with people.”

“I think social media has caused a lot of problems for us, when he learns about some friends doing better, he compares himself with them and wants to be like them.”

“Society can be very cruel,” said the father, his voice lowered.

“Society here has to accept there are people who need help. They have to understand… to include people like him rather than stick to policies where this cannot, that cannot.”

But he also acknowledged that in Wei Kong’s case, his society – from church to employer – had helped make it easier on the parents.

“It’s not our effort alone to make him what he is today. It’s the effort of everybody who did a small part to help him along the way.”

“On our own, I don’t think we can. I would have given up and told him to stay at home, sleep, watch TV.”

“Wei Kong, are you happy?”

“I’m not sure… At least I have a job, so I can support my family. So my parents can live life peacefully and without struggle. I want do something productive, positive in life. I don’t want to sit and rot.”

Since the accident, Wei Kong’s parents have had little choice but to lay out a long-term plan for his life, said Swee Chit.

“I thought about it very hard when he was recuperating. Right from the day he was discharged from hospital”

“I have to make decisions for him. That’s the most difficult part, and sometimes we end up in a big argument. But I cannot allow his irrational thinking to determine his future.”

“Before me and her go, everything must be in place. LeAnn has been helpful, supportive and understanding… and I will be depending on her to look after affairs when I’m no longer around. This itself is very comforting to us.”

Have they suffered, as their son feels?

“As a parent, I don’t consider any of this a sacrifice. It’s our job to see our children through thick and thin.”

And today, Wei Kong is still growing up slowly as a child would, yet to become a teenager and then an adult, said both Mr and Mrs Lee.

“We can see he’s getting better each day,” said Swee Chit. “As he gets older, he will become mellower, and accept what he is.”

“As parents, we will always have a lot of worries and concerns and fears. But there’s a better future. There’s still hope he can live a normal life.”

(Photos: Justin Ong)