SINGAPORE: Before bringing her recyclables down to the blue bins below her block, Cheryl Lee always takes the time to clean or wash the items that accumulate in her recycling corner at home. 

She and her mother make sure to remove all the non-recyclable parts like stickers and loose plastic packaging. For cardboard boxes, they even try to cut out the parts with plastic or tape that cannot be removed before recycling the rest.

On top of recycling in the correct way, the 28-year-old digital communications assistant manager tries to live as sustainably as possible – she uses reusable containers and packaging, and only buys second-hand clothes, among other things. 

However, she is well aware that people who go to the same lengths or even further are rare in Singapore, and she only knows of one or two others like her. 

Whenever she and her ex-colleagues bought lunch back to the office, Ms Lee always brought along used plastic bags to carry the food – not just for herself, but for every colleague who was with her. 

“I would carry it for them because they don’t want to do it because they think it’s troublesome. So I would do it for them. I would go to each stall that they are at and then I’d ask the aunty to put the plastic containers in the plastic bag I brought for them,” she told CNA. 

“I did change my approach halfway through because I realised that if you keep nagging people, people will be annoyed at you eventually,” she added with a laugh.

Acknowledging that leading an eco-friendly life in every aspect is “a very difficult commitment”, Ms Lee said: “As you live your life, there are certain things that you have to see whether you can adapt (to), like being green. And honestly even up to now, I am not zero waste.”

And when it comes to recycling, many Singaporeans are still “not very educated” about how to recycle properly, Ms Lee observed. 

For example, not everyone will remember or take the effort to remove the non-recyclable parts. “Do you really think that Singaporeans in general will take the time out to do that when they don’t even take the time out to do simple things?” 

SINGAPORE’S “LOW” DOMESTIC RECYCLING RATE

Over the past decade, Singapore’s overall recycling rate has hovered around 60 per cent. 

Although that rate is one of the highest in the world, its domestic recycling rate “remains low”, said deputy director of Nanyang Polytechnic’s School of Chemical and Life Sciences Richard Khaw.

Singapore’s domestic recycling rate declined from 22 per cent in 2018 to 17 per cent in 2019, below the European Union, which reported a domestic recycling rate of 46.4 per cent in 2017, he added. 

Although the then-Ministry of Environment and Water Resources – now the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment – conducted nearly 2,000 ground-up activities and reached out to more than 670,000 people, this is only 12 per cent of Singapore’s 5.8 million population, Mr Khaw noted, and a portion of the 670,000 people could be from the same households.

READ: Contamination of recyclables, incorrect recycling among possible factors for Singapore’s low domestic recycling rate: Experts

One of the biggest challenges for improving recycling rates in Singapore is still the mindset and behaviour of the public, said Ms Jen Teo, executive director of the Singapore Environment Council (SEC).

“More needs to be done to increase personal acceptance and responsibility for recycling in Singapore. Public education, raising consciousness and awareness that eventually lead to mindset changes and actions are key,” she said. 

“It is not easy, but it can be done.”

With blue bins located around estates, recycling can be tedious for the public who find it a hassle to change clothes to bring their recyclables downstairs, said Dr Adrian Ang, who manages the Diploma in Green Building and Sustainability at Temasek Polytechnic’s School of Engineering.

“Worse still, some of the bins are located a distance away from the lift lobby,” he added. 

The blue recycling bins are the “most common channel” for recycling, with 56 per cent of those who recycle regularly using the blue bins at least once a week, said the National Environment Agency (NEA) in response to queries.

Other than convenience, the lack of recycling knowledge also contributes to the low domestic recycling rate, said Ms Teo, citing SEC’s 2018 study, which found that 70 per cent of respondents did not fully know what was recyclable.

“This suggests the need for closer attention to increasing consumer information, education and awareness to close the knowledge gap,” she added. 

Seventy per cent of participants at the SEC Conference Day 2018 panel discussion agreed that public education and campaigns would help to increase the recycling rate, and this is “further validation and reinforcement” that more public education is required, she said.

The lack of recycling knowledge also contributes to contamination, which is one of the “main challenges” cited by NEA.

“Currently, about 40 per cent of what is placed in our blue recycling bins/recycling chutes cannot be recycled and/or are contaminated by food waste,” said the agency.

To raise awareness among the public on materials that can be recycled and how to prevent contamination, NEA has placed new labels on all blue recycling bins, stating clearly objects that can or cannot be recycled. All recycling trucks operated by the four public waste collectors have been standardised to make them easily identifiable.

As a Housing and Development Board (HDB) resident regularly exposed to recycling campaigns, Ms Lee thinks NEA is doing its part to educate the public. 

“But maybe there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach,” she said. It is difficult to compare Singapore’s recycling situation to countries like Japan, where citizens have a different attitude towards nature and being environmentally friendly, she added. 

READ: Singapore to reduce Semakau waste by 30% under first Zero Waste Master Plan

RECYCLING CHUTES – YES OR NO?

The convenience of having waste chutes in high-rise HDB and apartment blocks is another factor in the low recycling rate, said Ms Teo. 

However, studies have found that households living in apartments with dual chute systems recycle up to three times more than those living in apartments without them, noted Dr Ang.

Since 2014, all new public housing developments have dual chutes, where residents can throw refuse and recyclables separately. This was later extended from April 2018 to all new non-landed private residential developments with buildings taller than four storeys.

The first launch of the separate recycling chute – or the Centralised Chute for Recyclables  – was a trial. The chutes were placed at the common area of every floor at a Choa Chu Kang block in 2006. Later, the chutes were installed in two other projects, Fernvale Vista in Sengkang and Treelodge@Punggol, HDB’s first eco-precinct.

From May 2011 to Apr 2012, a HDB survey found that three times more recyclable waste was collected, compared to other housing estates of similar size that used conventional recyclable collection methods, including door-to-door collection and a centralised recyclables depository.

The survey also found that the average weight of recyclables collected from a block at Treelodge@Punggol in one month was 400kg, four times the amount collected from a typical HDB block without a recycling chute.

In view of the “encouraging results”, HDB has since extended the separate recycling chute programme to all new public housing developments launched from January 2014, it said in its response to CNA’s queries. 

“BEHAVIOURAL NUDGES” AND STARTING YOUNG

With the twin barriers of contamination and convenience firmly in the way of improving local recycling rates, how can people here learn to be better at recycling? Experts CNA spoke to pointed to education from an early age and incentives complemented by stricter restrictions as possible ways to accelerate an improvement in recycling rates. 

Noting that people can be driven to action with “behavioural nudges”, Ms Samantha Chan, a lecturer at Nanyang Polytechnic’s School of Business Management, said the strategies would vary for different target groups. 

Children can be educated on recycling through gamification, using mechanics to inspire learning and positive behaviour, she added. 

“More needs to be done in shaping the young minds” to play a more “active and effective role” in climate change matters, said founder of Plastic Lite SG Aarti Giri. 

“Educational institutions need to play a much more impactful role and impress upon their students that a whole lot of mindset shift, legwork and environmental legislations are needed if we are to have even a fighting chance in mitigating the disastrous effects of the looming climate crisis,” she told CNA. 

READ: Greater participation in green workshops, amid calls for more climate change education in schools

Citing examples at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels, Dr Laura Yap, who is the programme chair for the Diploma in Environmental Science at Republic Polytechnic, said recycling education in schools has had “a positive impact” on students. “So we are doing something right at the school level but this recycling mentality seems to fade as adults transit into the workplace.”

More organisations and offices need to take on recycling efforts at their own facilities “so that this recycling mentality can continue and be reinforced further” at the workplace, where people spend a significant amount of time, she said. 

“And just like how our school children take home their recycling habits from school, hopefully adults can do the same and bring home their workplace recycling habits.” 

Nanyang Polytechnic’s Ms Chan said individuals can be encouraged to recycle at recycling machines placed near their homes in exchange for incentives, noting similar successes in Denmark and Australia. Retailers can also help by making recycling bins readily available at their stores, and offering similar incentives.

In Taiwan, recyclers can add value to their MRT access cards for every bottle or can they deposit in a smart recycling booth, said Temasek Polytechnic’s Dr Ang. 

At the Community of Supply debate in March, then-Senior Minister of State for Environment and Water Resources Amy Khor announced that NEA will implement a Deposit Refund Scheme for beverage containers by 2022.

For such schemes, producers usually pay for the system to take back used beverage containers and consumers get a refund when returning empty containers at designated return points. In countries such as Norway and Germany, similar schemes have achieved a high recycling rate of beverage containers of more than 80 per cent, Dr Khor said. 

In October 2019, drinks manufacturer Fraser and Neave (F&N) and NEA installed 50 smart vending machines that gave out S$0.20 FairPrice coupons for every four empty plastic drink bottles and aluminium drink cans deposited. 

Snaking queues of shoppers hoping to redeem coupons quickly formed. Months later in January this year, it was revised to a S$0.20 coupon for every 20 empty bottles and cans, and the queues soon disappeared.

Providing incentives to recycle could become costly and may not be sustainable in the long run, said Ms Chan. To “ensure sustainability”, Singapore should also consider stricter measures. 

For example, in South Korea, food waste has to be recycled as compost, and those who fail to do so risk getting fined. About 95 per cent of the country’s food waste is now recycled, she added. 

Singapore can also learn from the European Union in implementing mandatory recycling measures, said Nanyang Polytechnic’s Mr Khaw. “However, we need to have sufficient infrastructure and logistical support to implement such mandatory measures.” 

“As long as recycling is done on a voluntary basis, we are unlikely to see any significant improvement in the recycling rate,” he added. 

And there is no shortage of measures from other countries that Singapore can reference, adapt and adopt. 

In Japan, there are “literally no garbage cans” on the street because individuals are responsible for processing their waste at home, Dr Ang said. In Switzerland, official garbage bags are available for purchase at a higher price, while recycling is free. 

The UK uses a three-pronged strategy – streamlined recycling infrastructure, a comprehensive awareness campaign and policies that include both incentive and taxation measures, he added, describing this as “the key to expediting public adopting”. 

READ: Singapore generated less waste in 2019, but recycling rate also fell: NEA

“Recycling is a behaviour, much like exercising to keep fit or eating healthily, people often engage in these behaviours less than they should,” said Dr Ang. 

While he believes that Singapore is still lagging behind in terms of legislation for individual recycling efforts, he is “more inclined” to education than legislation, as the former will be “more sustainable in the long run”. 

Echoing Mr Khaw’s thoughts on the necessary infrastructure, he added: “All of us want convenience and it is one of the strongest predictors of whether or not somebody will participate in the recycling programmes that we currently have in place.

“So obviously, if the infrastructure is not fully mature or made convenient for one to use, we cannot expect people to participate fully.”

“COUCH EFFECT” AND INDIFFERENCE

Even with education and legislation, consumers still need to be convinced to play a more active role in protecting the environment, said Ms Giri. 

“I see the ‘couch effect’ is very ingrained in our society and the call to get off and be more proactive – whether in the area of recycling, BYO (bring your own) or supporting low carbon activities – has to be convincing enough to break this indifference,” she added. 

“The current approach of requesting and appealing to people’s empathy may just not ‘do it’.” 

Although many people in Singapore understand the impact of recycling on climate change, the environment and the long-term sustainability of food and energy supplies, they still do not see the impact of a low recycling rate on their daily lives, said Nanyang Polytechnic’s Mr Khaw. 

Recounting her conversations with friends who cannot understand why she lives as she does, Ms Lee confirmed that most of them had views similar to those suggested by the experts CNA spoke to. 

“I have friends who tell me that it’s okay, I’m going to die anyway. By the time the Earth is (in a) really bad (state), I’m not going to be alive,” she said, adding that this makes her “very, very sad”. 

Noting that this mentality is “normalised”, Ms Lee disagreed that younger Singaporeans are very eco-friendly, and emphasised again that she is still part of the minority. 

“It’s growing, and there are people, but it just so happens that the minorities have a louder voice now, so it seems as though millennials are more eco-friendly.”

Many youths today are indeed sensitive about the waste that is being generated, said Republic Polytechnic’s Dr Yap.

Responding to queries, the National Youth Council confirmed that it has seen a steady interest in ground-up environmental projects through funding applications from 2017 to 2019, including ones for recycling initiatives. 

The council administers the Young ChangeMakers grant to provide seed funding for ground-up initiatives by youths. The National Youth Fund also supports similar initiatives. 

Echoing Ms Giri, Ms Lee said people “don’t like to be told what to do”, and they “don’t see the direct effect” of not being environmentally friendly. 

“It’s only when you see it happening, like (when) it’s causing harm to you, then you start to (think) like ‘Oh my God, what?”

READ: More than 1,700 turn up at first Singapore Climate Rally

READ: ‘We as children have to do our part’: This 11-year-old environmentalist wants others to join him in saving the Earth

Even climate change scientists struggle to convince people to take action, she added. “I think it’s because it’s not yet causing inconvenience to people’s daily life, therefore, it’s out of sight out of mind. So they’re not motivated to make a change.” 

However, she is not completely pessimistic about her ability to influence the people around her. After leaving her previous job, a few of her former colleagues told her that they now carry around a reusable bag because of her.

“And then they said: ‘You know, now if I go to the hawker centre, if I don’t bring a plastic bag I’ll feel really bad.’

“It could just be one or two people, but can you imagine like it’s a butterfly effect … All you just need is to impact one or two people. And then from there, if they impact one or two people on their end, then eventually it spreads.”

INDUSTRY WASTE

Another common refrain Ms Lee has heard is that the waste produced by a single person makes up a very small and insignificant percentage of the total waste produced. 

The absolute amount of non-domestic waste produced far outweighs the amount of waste produced by households. According to NEA statistics, 5.37 million tonnes of non-domestic waste was produced in 2019, compared to 1.87 million tonnes of domestic waste. 

Similarly, in 2018, 5.7 million tonnes of waste produced was non-domestic, while 2 million tonnes of waste was produced by households. 

Both of these figures saw a drop the next year. Among households, the recycling rate fell from 22 per cent in 2018 to 17 per cent in 2019, while the non-domestic recycling rate decreased from 75 per cent in 2018 to 73 per cent.

According to NEA’s website, the Environmental Public Health Act was amended on Apr 1, 2014 to compel industrial, trade, commercial or manufacturing premises to report waste data and submit waste reduction plans. Owners and managers of large hotels and malls have reported their general waste data and waste reduction plans to NEA since 2014.

And it appears that recycling efforts have improved since the implementation of the Mandatory Waste Reporting Exercise.

Between 2014 and 2018, the proportion of premises that recycle increased from 91 to 93 per cent for large hotels and from 80 to 94 per cent for large malls, according to NEA statistics. 

The respective industry recycling rates also improved between 2014 and 2018, from 6 per cent to 7.7 per cent for large hotels and 6.7 per cent to 10.7 per cent for large malls. 

In Mar 2019, Dr Khor announced that the mandatory waste reporting scheme will be extended to large industrial developments and convention centres.

This will apply to factories, warehouses and convention centres with gross floor areas of more than 20,000 sq m, 50,000 sq m and 8,000 sq m, respectively. They will need to track the amount of waste they generate from 2020 and submit their first reports to NEA in 2021.

In response to queries about how they manage waste and how much is recycled, companies CNA spoke to shared measures they take to improve recycling and reduce waste.

IKEA Singapore’s employees collect cardboard and plastic packaging after unpacking goods. They then segregate the packaging materials into recycling bins and sell the cardboard and paper to a recycling provider while providing the plastic free-of-charge.

The recycling provider then sells to local traders who ship it to recycling plants in Indonesia, Malaysia or other countries in the region. 

IKEA’s two stores here collected 1,946 tonnes of carton boxes and 48 tonnes of plastic wrappings in 2019, said the furniture giant, adding that it recycles 73 per cent of its total waste. By 2030, IKEA plans to produce all the home furnishing in its stores from recycled, recyclable or renewable materials.

READ: 18,000 households in Singapore to get free IKEA recycling bin

On the hotel front, Holiday Inn Singapore Atrium recycles 100 per cent of its paper and plastic bottles. Its average paper waste is 100kg a month, while its average plastic bottle waste is about 35kg a month, said a spokesperson. 

Meanwhile, Marriott International aims to reduce the amount of waste it sends to landfills by 45 per cent, said a spokesperson. All the plastic and paper waste produced at its hotels is recycled, and it has contracted third-party companies to collect the waste on a weekly or monthly basis.

The international hotel chain has also placed recycling bins in each guest room and labelled bins for proper waste segregation at back of house areas.

READ: Hotel waste: The huge switch to becoming a more sustainable business

READ: Could more be done to reduce plastic packaging waste in Singapore’s supermarkets?

Supermarkets also deal with large amounts of packaging waste, and have begun to implement similar initiatives.

According to its 2019 sustainability report, Sheng Siong recycled 7,160 tonnes of carton materials last year, compared to 6,531 tonnes in 2018. It also recycled 7,622 units of wooden pallets in 2019, a sharp increase from 2,914 units in 2018. 

Other than carton materials, wooden pallets and food waste, Sheng Siong also recycles plastic, stretched film, Styrofoam boxes, cans and metals. 

NTUC FairPrice said it is currently working to collect data across all FairPrice stores and warehouses to prepare for its first Mandatory Packaging Report, and “it is too soon to be able to share meaningful data”. 

The supermarket chain said it is “committed to environmental sustainability in (its) operations where possible” and stands in “full support” of the Government’s measures to reduce packaging waste. It has implemented “green operating procedures” at all FairPrice stores and warehouses, where recyclable waste such as carton boxes are collected for recycling.

IF IT CAN’T BE RECYCLED, IT BURNS

Singapore’s recycling rate is also affected by how much of the waste sent to recycling centres – local and overseas – can actually be recycled. With more countries closing their borders to imported waste and low local recycling capacities, more of Singapore’s recyclables may burn in incinerators. 

And this will drive recycling rates back down. With overall recycling rates sticking at about 60 per cent in recent years, Singapore is currently falling short of its 65 per cent Sustainable Development Blueprint target for 2020. 

This is part of Singapore’s journey to meet the United Nations’ High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which in 2015 set goals for countries around the world to take action in areas of critical importance for humanity and the planet.

Singapore’s 2030 goal has been set at 70 per cent. 

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China announced in July 2017 that it would no longer import “foreign garbage”. In 2019, 30 per cent of recyclable materials was exported to countries including Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand for processing and recycling, said NEA.

A CNA report in 2018 found that where public waste collectors used to collect household recyclables, sort out the plastics and sell them to China, they were incinerating them instead.

READ: ‘Cannot sell … so they burn’: What’s next in the uncertain future for plastic waste in Singapore?

The “persistently weak global market demand” for plastic recyclables was a key reason for the drop in the plastic recycling rate in 2019, said NEA, adding that it was “developing our local recycling capabilities” to treat post-consumer plastic waste, including PET beverage bottles.

Exports of recyclables are highly dependent on demand and supply in the international market, and has been “increasingly constrained by the import policies of other countries” in recent years, the agency said.

Singapore lacks the large-scale facilities needed to recycle a substantial amount of materials, which is why paper and plastic waste has to be exported, said Ms Melissa Tan, chairman of the Waste Management and Recycling Association of Singapore. 

“However, when countries like China, Malaysia and Indonesia close their doors to the import of such recyclable wastes, then like food waste, we may have no choice but to incinerate them,” said Ms Tan.

The shrinking of regional and global markets for recyclable imports has affected recycling rates “to an extent”, said the manager of non-governmental organisation Zero Waste SG, Ms Pek Hai Lin, adding that Singapore should own its recycling processes “as much as possible”. 

In the typical recycling process, a dedicated recycling truck collects the waste from each blue bin, and takes it to a materials recovery facility. The recyclables are then sorted into different waste streams, baled and sent to local and overseas recycling plants.

Singapore’s largest materials recovery facility, which belongs to Sembcorp, can be found in Tuas. It receives up to 60 tonnes of materials from household collections per day, of which only 50 to 60 per cent is suitable for recycling, as the remaining is contaminated or not recyclable.

“In general, over the past few years, we have also not seen significant improvement to the contamination level of household recyclables that come through our facility,” said Mr Neo Hong Keat, senior vice-president of waste management at Sembcorp Industries.

WATCH: Singapore to open recycling plant capable of producing fuel from rubbish

READ: New ‘environmentally friendly’ lithium-ion battery recycling facility to open in Singapore

As a sorting facility, Sembcorp collects mixed recyclables and relies on a team of 20 workers to sort them into different waste streams, bale them and send them to authorised dealers in Singapore, including recyclers like Plaspulp Union.

The plastic recycling facility in Tuas South, which has been around for more than 20 years, receives about 20 to 30 tonnes of plastic a day. The facility can process 30 to 40 tonnes of plastic per day. 

About 5 to 8 per cent of the waste received cannot be recycled, depending on the type of plastic they receive and the contamination rate, said operation manager Jade Loh.

The waste is segregated and then put through the recycling machine to be crushed, re-processed and recycled into plastic pellets. The plastic pellets are then sold to bag manufacturers, agricultural firms and moulding companies to make objects like toys and chairs.

When asked why Plaspulp focuses on recycling industrial waste, Ms Loh explained that consumer waste is more difficult to recycle as it is often contaminated.

“There could be waste residue left over from consumer waste, such as (for) example, a plastic bag could be used to store rubbish, (or it) could have a lot of dirty materials inside,” she said.

“Therefore, (this) makes it a bit more difficult to recycle in comparison to post-industrial waste where we can just do a little bit of sorting and they’re generally cleaner than consumables.”

But the contamination rate from industry players has also improved over the years as they have become more conscious about the cleanliness of the waste they send for recycling, she said, adding that Plaspulp educates their customers on how to handle recyclables as well.

While plastic recycling is its main business, Plaspulp also sorts paper waste and re-processes styrofoam and polyethylene into pellets. In this process, about 2 to 3 per cent of the base material is wasted. 

Running a recycling facility is not easy and can be expensive, said Ms Loh, citing high rental and manpower costs. It is also difficult to hire Singaporean workers who have experience sorting the different materials, she added. 

Temasek Polytechnic’s Dr Ang also noted that Singapore’s practice of discarding recyclable waste in a common blue bin before sorting it at a central facility costs more than sorting it in multiple bins from the start.

“Therefore, it may appear more cost effective to treat the waste using the usual incineration process,” he said.

With such constraints, Plaspulp is one of a “handful” of recyclers left. Several have closed over the past two years, said Ms Loh. 

WASTE-TO-ENERGY PLANTS TO COMPLEMENT RECYCLING

To deal with the waste it cannot export and cannot recycle, Singapore is moving towards more efficient and innovative processes in solid waste management, said Assistant Professor Grzegorz Lisak from the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). 

He told CNA that waste-to-energy solutions are already “quite established” in Singapore, with four plants that incinerate non-recyclable combustible waste.

“This allows for waste volume reduction, which helps to reduce the use of scarce land for waste disposal. Ash from the incineration plants and non-incinerable waste are transported and disposed at Semakau Landfill,” said Asst Prof Lisak. 

Waste-to-energy incineration is feasible in Singapore, as it helps to reduce the volume of waste by up to 90 per cent, he added. 

“Not everything can burn though. There are non-combustible components in waste. It is challenging to recover these materials after (the) incineration process. 

“If everyone does their part and throws recyclable waste such as glass bottles, metal cans, electronic waste into separate recycling bins, the zero waste initiative would be more effective.”

NTU operates the only waste-to-energy gasification plant in Singapore – it processes municipal waste to produce synthesis gas that can be used to generate electricity more efficiently than incineration plants, or as feedstock for chemical synthesis from waste. 

“The technology treats waste, recovering energy just like in the incineration plant while simultaneously recovering materials such as metal and slag, both of which have direct industrial applications,” said Asst Prof Lisak. 

The plant, funded by NEA, NTU, the Economic Development Board and the National Research Foundation, also serves as a testbed for new waste-to-energy solutions.

Asst Prof Lisak also noted that there is “an ongoing effort” to further the sustainability of waste management practices, evident from the Government’s plans to construct an integrated waste management facility by 2024 for resource and energy recovery from incinerable waste, recyclables, food waste and sewage sludge. 

“Going forward, I would presume the Government’s approach will be multi-pronged, with the waste-to-energy efforts being complemented by efforts to boost recycling rates.”

Responding to questions about whether waste-to-energy plants could be a more worthwhile investment compared to recycling plants, Asst Prof Lisak stressed that there is “no single waste treatment solution” that works for all types of waste. 

“Investing in just waste-to-energy plants and not doing the same in recycling plants would be an unsustainable approach. Not only would such an approach involve significant monetary costs, it would also be accompanied by a huge cost to the environment,” he said. 

“If materials that can be recycled end up in incineration plants, there would be a significant stress on Earth’s natural resources. An ever-increasing amount of our limited natural resources will be consumed in producing fresh goods.”

“WE ALL DESERVE IT”

For Ms Lee, these efforts cannot come any sooner.

“I am sorry to say we’re ignorant individuals, to be very honest. And that’s not really everybody’s fault – no, it’s just the way society is … when it comes to the Earth,” she said.

“But it is something that we can change.” 

It is “very important to keep reiterating that it’s not about recycling but reducing” even though people know “in theory” that consumption is what drives production. With demand and supply comes manufacturing and production, which creates carbon footprints, she added. 

“It’s simply because human beings create a lot of social norms and behaviours and habits, therefore, there’s so much demand for certain things which create all these problems … We are trying our best to save the Earth, but then unfortunately most of the human beings are not with us, so I’ve come to the acceptance that we all deserve it.”

SINGAPORE: Ten suspected drug offenders were arrested in a series of raids across Singapore carried out by the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) on Thursday (Jul 30), including a man who fell out of a fourth-floor window while trying to evade capture.

The suspects, nine men and one woman aged between 28 and 62 – all Singaporeans – were arrested at locations including Woodlands, Choa Chu Kang and Teck Whye, the bureau said in a news release on Friday.

About S$800,000 worth of drugs was also seized in the various operations.

A total of 11.1kg of heroin, about 101g of Ice, 30 Ecstasy tablets and fragments and one Erimin-5 tablet were seized, as well as S$18,400 in cash.

This includes enough heroin to sustain the addiction of about 5,290 abusers for a week, said CNB.

MAN FALLS FROM WINDOW WHILE TRYING TO ESCAPE

In one of the operations on Thursday morning, a 50-year-old man was injured after falling from a fourth-storey window while running away from CNB officers.

The officers had earlier arrested a different man for suspected drug consumption offences near Teck Whye Crescent. About 4g of heroin was found on the 52-year-old.

Following up on this arrest, the officers then raided a residential unit in the vicinity of Choa Chu Kang Street 51, where the 50-year-old man refused to let them in.

“He then attempted to evade arrest by scaling out of the rear kitchen window of the unit located on the fourth storey,” said CNB. “In the process, he fell and suffered injuries.”

He was taken conscious to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital for medical attention and is currently in stable condition, said the bureau.

In a search of the unit, officers seized about 1g of heroin, three packets containing about 5g of Ice, 20 Ecstasy tablets and 1 Erimin-5 tablet.

A 40-year-old woman who was in the unit was also arrested for suspected drug consumption offences.

Officers found car keys as well, which led them to a rented vehicle where four more bundles containing about 1.9kg of heroin were seized.

OFFICER INJURED AFTER “VIOLENT STRUGGLE”

Another operation on Thursday morning conducted by a different team of officers led to the arrest of a 59-year-old man around Chin Swee Road.

The man put up a “violent struggle” as officers moved to arrest him, and injured an officer with a metal object, said CNB.

“Necessary force was effected to restrain and place the suspect under arrest.”

Two bundles containing about 954g of heroin were found on him. When he was brought back to his residence, officers recovered another 3g of heroin, about 5.5g of Ice, 10 Ecstasy tablets and fragments as well as S$10,000 in cash.

“The police are investigating into the offence of voluntarily causing hurt to the CNB officer,” added the bureau.

MORE ARRESTS IN WOODLANDS, TECK WHYE LANE

Officers made more arrests later in the day, after putting two men under observation around Woodlands Avenue 6 in the afternoon.

The men, aged 51 and 43, were seen boarding a private-hire vehicle. They were arrested when they alighted from the vehicle near Woodlands Street 13, said CNB.

Twelve packets containing about 90g of heroin and seven packets containing about 87.5g of Ice were seized from the 43-year-old. Another 50 packets containing about 375g of heroin and S$8,400 in cash was seized from the private-hire vehicle.

The 51-year-old suspect was later brought back to his “hideout” around Woodlands Avenue 6, said CNB. Officers recovered about 646g of heroin and about 3g of Ice from his unit.

In a separate operation that afternoon, officers raided a unit around Rivervale Drive where they seized about 5.23kg of heroin and arrested a 53-year-old man.

Two more men, aged 30 and 28, were arrested separately in the vicinity of Teck Whye Lane on Thursday evening. Officers seized four bundles containing about 1.9g of heroin from the 30-year-old’s motorcycle.

In the late evening, officers also arrested a 62-year-old man around Choa Chu Kang Avenue 1. A straw containing 6g of heroin was found on him, while about 8g of heroin was recovered when his vehicle was searched.

Police investigations into the drug activities of the suspects are ongoing.

SINGAPORE: When Ms Nupur Khemka started her online soap business on Facebook, she had about 100 likes, with two to three enquiries in her first month. Most of her followers were friends and family. 

This all changed after she started an Instagram account in her second month, said Ms Nupur. She now gets a few enquiries a day on the platform. 

Her business, Mira, currently has about 4,000 followers on Instagram. The social media platform has been  a “blessing” for her, she said, with more than 90 per cent of her referrals coming from there.

“I would think Facebook is really big, so I started on Facebook … I thought Facebook was enough, but I didn’t get any traction from Facebook,” said Ms Nupur.

“And then the second step was to get to Instagram, and when I actually went to Instagram, I didn’t even know how to start, make stories or anything. So I learned all of that.”

Mira is one of many small businesses that have found their customer base on Instagram. Many of these retailers cited the platform’s large user base, its visual layout and the social elements of the service that made it ideal for them to get started.

While Instagram has been putting in new features since 2018 to make the platform business-friendly, the number of small retailers on the site ballooned after COVID-19 “circuit breaker” measures were imposed, said experts.

“I think for Instagram, starting from 2018 in terms of interface changes, Instagram as a platform has been trying to make it business friendly to promote shopping,” said Singapore Polytechnic School of Business lecturer Lim Xiu Ru.

“For us locally, in terms of small businesses who try to use Instagram, it picked up exponentially during the circuit breaker.”

STRONG VISUALS AND A “PERSONAL TOUCH” 

About half of Singapore’s 4.5 million social media users are on Instagram, estimated Dr Boey Yew Tung, senior lecturer from the marketing division of the Nanyang Business School. This forms a “sizable number of potential customers” for Instagram businesses, he added.

“With many businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, social media is a very viable channel to reach digital-savvy customers,” he said.

Apart from the large number of users, the social and visual nature of Instagram are the biggest draws of the platform, said retailers.

“I chose Instagram because visuals are what attracts people first rather than words. People are always on Instagram because they closely tie their social life to it,” said Ms Siti Nur Azizah Rasani, owner of an online store that sells reconstructed clothing. Her business, Bhabie, has more than 4,500 followers on Instagram.

It’s a sentiment shared by Ms Adele Lau, owner of kombucha business Le Vyr.

“Because we are so visual people, especially in 2020 – everybody has a very keen eye for aesthetics – we all like to look at things that are pretty or beautiful,” she said. “So Instagram is a very easy way to capture the attention of your viewers and your customers.”

Le Vyr has gained about 500 followers since the business started in May. Ninety-nine per cent of her sales come from Instagram, said Ms Lau, with the rest coming from her website. 

Instagram’s various features allow businesses to engage potential customers. On Instagram stories, users can post short video clips, quizzes and polls that stay up for 24 hours.

Ms Nupur, for instance, posts behind-the-scenes videos of her soapmaking – which she found the “most engaging”. She also uses polls on Instagram to make decisions about her brand, such as choosing the type of packaging for her soaps.

Ms Rachel Ma, who owns rubber stamp store Droolstamps, initially used Instagram to share her work. However, she kept a presence on the platform even after setting up her website, as her target audience is mainly on Instagram. She gets all of her enquiries from Instagram.

It also allows her to have that “personal touch” with people on her account, she said, and they can have conversations over the platform.

“A website is like an island, right? People won’t really visit this lone island if there isn’t other platforms to direct them to that place,” she added.

While tapping social media is not a new trend, there seems to be a “greater impetus” for businesses to do so, said Dr Boey.

With safe distancing measures in place, starting a business on social media is a “cost-efficient strategy” to keep customers front and centre, said Dr Chen Lou, who is Assistant Professor of Integrated Marketing Communication at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.

She added that for businesses targeting millennials or Gen Z, or those who are tech-savvy, Instagram is a “very accessible and yet manageable” first step.

“It can jumpstart your social media marketing strategy if you did not have any before. It is cheaper to create content for Instagram than, say YouTube, and also easy to manage,” Dr Chen said.

Singapore Polytechnic’s Ms Lim recommended that businesses be clear on their objectives and who they want to reach out to before choosing any particular platform to start out. It also depends on the amount of resources they have and whether they can manage multiple platforms at the same time.

Sellers also need to balance between an organic online presence and boosted advertisements, she said, as using Instagram’s sponsored posts could help them reach a wider audience.

“For businesses starting out, starting up on Instagram might be sufficient for a start. Only after they build their follower base … then they might want to consider other platforms,” she added.

Products that can presented through an “aesthetically pleasant visual manner” such as fashion and food would do well on the social network, Ms Lim noted.

CANNOT TRANSACT WITHIN THE SITE

While Facebook-owned Instagram can be useful for marketing and reaching customers, retailers said that the lack of an in-built purchasing function is a major limitation for them.

This is set to change in the next few weeks, after Instagram rolled out Instagram Shop in the United States for users to browse and buy products without leaving the app. Instagram said this feature will progressively made available to the rest of the world.

There may still be limitations, however. 

“You can’t actually transact. Because with Instagram Shop, if you want to do a credit card transaction I still have to set up a website somewhere, I still need to buy a point-of-sale somewhere and that shop links to my point-of-sale,” said Ms Lim Chingying, who owns 5amflowers.

Singapore Polytehnic’s Ms Lim agreed, noting that the number of steps needed to make payment could lead to customers dropping the transaction halfway, sometimes due to technical issues.

READ: Great Singapore Sale to go online this year with ‘new norm’ shopping experience amid COVID-19 pandemic

READ: S$45 million tourism campaign launched urging locals to explore Singapore

As a “visual-predominant website” with pictures and short videos, it can also be difficult for sellers to detail brand or production information or show products in action, compared to long videos or long Facebook posts, said Dr Chen.

Nevertheless, most experts and retailers agree that Instagram would be here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.

“Instagram still offers great potential for brands to experiment marketing strategies, like influencer marketing or content marketing. It can be cost efficient, accessible and democratic if used well,” said Dr Chen.

SINGAPORE: In the video game Super Mario, the goal is to get coins, hit blocks, look for shortcuts and, importantly, run whenever possible to level up. 

“Unless absolutely necessary, never stop running. Remember, you have a time limit to finish the level, and the faster you get through, the better your score will be,” states the WikiHow page on the game. 

It is an ominous warning that, for as long as I can remember, was eerily analogous to my career trajectory which began way before entering the workforce. 

Along with many Singaporean millennials, I learnt the importance of dreaming big, being passionate and giving my all from young. I firmly believed hard work and passion were the two unicorn coins I had to grab and hold onto to proceed to the next level in life.

In school, this translated into zealous goal-setting and overachievement. Every milestone was a fleeting but significant dopamine hit that left me wanting more, even as I got to all the “coins” and “blocks” I was supposed to. 

I embraced the rat race before I knew I was a rat, making my first few years in the workforce relatively breezy. 

Like any self-respecting Type A person, my body was chronically attuned to ambition. Never mind that my goalposts shifted as soon as I reached them, the overall goal was to keep running, whether that meant hitting the next promotion, getting a salary increase, or doubling down on ambition. 

Then my video game was short circuited by, well, the circuit breaker.

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READ: Commentary: Long-term work from home may not be great for your health

When I was made to slow down, I realised many of my old habits were unsustainable, not least my relationship with career and ambition. The hamster wheel was all I knew —  but it could not continue. 

AN UNHEALTHY DEFINITION OF SUCCESS

Unless you’re one of the psychotic few who’s managed to be productive during a pandemic, COVID-19 has forced most of us to reconsider our somewhat acceptable working cultures. 

Stuck at home, the performative aspects of work have fallen away. Some of us no longer feel the need to dress up for work or engage in office politics, like keeping tabs on which colleagues are getting plum assignments. 

Without the physical office, the importance of boundaries around work and life has become even more crucial. A lack of these can lead to varying degrees of problematic overlap, whether it’s working non-stop from the time one wakes up to taking one too many naps.

READ: Commentary: Does long-term WFH mean goodbye to makeup?

Many of us have long gathered our core sense of identity from our professional accomplishments, turbocharged by social norms and cultural expectations.

For instance, and at the risk of making a sweeping generalisation, male ambition largely manifests via the inherent expectation for men to be the breadwinner of the family.

Women, however, seem to have a more complicated relationship with ambition.

We’re told that we can — and should — aspire to ‘have it all’ to be successful. We are expected to want both motherhood and a full-time career, implying that we are somehow lesser without either ambition. And if we don’t have both for whatever reason, we had jolly well be either an exceptional mother or have a kick-ass career.

READ: Commentary: What’s wrong with being a single woman?

READ: Commentary: The myth of the superhero career woman is holding us back

A culture that sees tangible goals, from career milestones to getting married and settling down, as markers of success invariably pegs personal success to external validation. If we’re not recognised or rewarded for being ambitious and driven, then there is almost a lack of purpose.

We’re also taught to admire people who seem more ambitious, such as those ranked on “30 under 30” lists, never mind that we might be on a completely different career path.

We nurse and nurture our pathological obsession with pursuing blind ambition, inevitably leading ourselves to a certain, common outcome: Burnout.

Most of us feel we have no choice but to carry on with the status quo because, like Super Mario, running is the only way to hit more goals and escape our current level in life.

A NEW NORMAL FOR AMBITION

When we are this focused on constantly striving for more, the enforced slower pace of life can be more uncomfortable than expected. Having to rethink our idea of ambition can be disorienting because it requires a shift in perspective for what we’ve been told is a fundamental part of our identity.

On one hand, not everyone has the luxury to use this down time to reflect on broader values and beliefs, when we’re stressing over financial fallout or have to deal with retrenchment.

But while grappling with uncertainty can make us more determined to hold onto any remaining semblance of control over our lives, including meticulously planning our career trajectory in the new normal, the need to redefine professional ambition isn’t a bad thing.

Ironically, we’re able to focus on doing good work for its own sake when we’re less obsessed with arbitrary but common hallmarks of ambition — getting awards, being promoted more often than your peers, earning a certain amount before a certain age, and even chasing after praise from bosses or envy from colleagues.

Producing good work simply because we believe in the work allows us to stop rooting our sense of self-worth in how fast we ascend the career ladder or which rungs we’re scaling.

Rethinking our ambitions also means being more intentional about our motivations behind certain career goals, like gunning for a promotion. Are we genuinely excited by the job scope? Or have we simply been told we must reach for a rank above us to prove that we’re driven?

It means figuring out why we have a random salary figure in mind before we’d consider ourselves having “made it”. Where does this figure come from? Does success consistently and directly correlate to our income, or is there a point where income stops factoring into success?

READ: Commentary: Toxic workplaces are feeding the imposter phenomenon

READ: Commentary: Immobility during COVID-19 and its effects on our sleep, physical activity and well-being

Figuring out the answers is key to a healthier relationship with work.

All this is, of course, easier said than done. 

Conventional markers of success and ambition will remain relevant or important to an extent, since most of us find it hard to be continuously intrinsically motivated. 

But as someone who’s been career-oriented since time immemorial, this central change in my relationship with ambition will requiring shifting gears. It will take time, but I’m starting to see how criticism or praise might influence what I do, but won’t define who I am. 

Even though it’s still early days, these mental boundaries make it easier to draw physical boundaries while working from home too.

My huge ambition was always my favourite part about myself, until I reached a point where hitting more career milestones didn’t do it for me anymore. Sometimes it even made me wonder if I deserved my accomplishments.

I would run harder and faster, resulting in even greater cognitive dissonance when I wasn’t as happy as I should’ve been from hitting all these coins and levelling up at a respectable speed.

If not for the pandemic, I probably wouldn’t have slowed down just yet, despite my depleting stamina screaming for a break.

Now that I have, I see what happens when ambition is largely driven by external factors: The more you run from yourself, the faster you run into yourself.