A national recycling effort collected just 2% of the total amount of waste generated by the domestic sector in 2016, falling far behind other waste collection efforts.
Dr Khor said the public waste collectors collected about 44,200 tonnes of recyclables in 2016, and that the Government does not track the cost of outreach efforts under this programme, as this was usually done in tandem with other events.
In total, only 435,600 tonnes of the 2.1 million tonnes of waste generated was recycled. Recyclables from the domestic sector are picked up by public waste collectors under the National Recycling Programme, or collected by the informal recycling sector.
Yesterday, Dr Khor told the House that the Ministry for the Environment and Water Resources is looking at how it can improve Singapore’s domestic recycling rate.
“In recent years, we have been enhancing recycling infrastructure to make it even easier for Singaporeans to recycle,” she said.
“We will also use regulatory measures to complement the new recycling infrastructure. For example, we will introduce a new framework to make it easier for Singaporeans to recycle their e-waste,” Dr Khor added.
Still, the overall domestic recycling rate has hovered around a low rate of 20% since 2012.
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Source: The Straits Times, 1 March 2018