When starting this project, I found it difficult to come up with a topic. Since I’m not from Singapore, the fact that the project was supposed to be about a South-East Asian conservation problem made it more difficult. After giving it some thought, I decided to go with the use of plastic, especially plastic bags, in Singapore. The first time I ordered a coke at MacDonald’s I remember being really confused when the girl at the counter asked if I wanted a bag. I said yes because I thought I either just didn’t understood her accent or I wasn’t paying enough attention. I got a little plastic bag, in which I could hang my coke. I had never seen this before and I had no clue what it’s function was. Since I have hands, why couldn’t I just carry my coke?!
After that I started to pay attention to how much plastic bags I got from shops, stores and restaurants. I did some research into the subject and I found that I was not alone in seeing that Singaporeans use a lot of plastic. Back in the Netherlands, we have to pay for plastic bags. If we want a plastic bag when we, for example, go the groceries it will cost us around €0.20 a bag. This is to stimulate people to use less plastic and bring their own bags to the stores. This is not the case in Singapore.
In this video clip, you will see how Singaporeans say they need the plastic bags and that it won’t be easy to stop using them or to the reduce the amount that is being. The elderly couple in the clip uses them to store food in the fridge and say that plastic is fantastic. And no, they don’t mean plastic surgery..