Our local efforts are starkly lax in contrast against that of South Korea’s to manage food waste. A 17% recycling rate compared to a 95% recycling rate of food waste highlights Singapore’s need to step up in managing her output of food waste. Will South Korea’s methods work in Singapore, then?

What Singapore lacks

Both Singapore and South Korea employed top-down efforts from the government body to reduce the amount of food waste generated.

The efforts here in Singapore are mostly ‘encouraging’, but optional, therefore not creating enough social pressure to warrant a change in practices. We are trying to rely on public integrity here while also cultivating a yet-to-exist culture of not wasting food, which will turn out ineffective. A shift in culture comes gradually after a major change in circumstances or environment as well as considerable social pressure for preservation of a comfortable status quo. The Singapore authorities did not put in enough effort to create an environment to force such change. There is also no direct consequence that will affect everyday lives, hence no motivation to reduce food waste generated.

On the other hand, South Korea has cut off the option of allowing food waste to be disposed off in landfills. A choice is to be made by the citizens between the two options: deal with the food waste or drown in it. A strict series of regulations and punishments are also in place to ensure the efficient management of food waste. Consequences are salient and directly affect the people, and an artificial culture of food waste reduction is created here. It also calls for a collective effort amongst the South Koreans to reduce food waste, for the sake of preserving the livability of their environment. Social pressure is strong as the solution depends on their collective efforts to be put into action. For the subconscious fear of social rejection, members of the community abide to the rules set to reduce food waste. True cultural shift then occurs over time as the education of the importance of reducing food waste and more ways to go about on how to are gradually introduced, and the people internalize the values over time.

What we can learn

If Singapore wants to make her efforts work, there must be direct and salient consequences for not abiding food waste reducing efforts. A strong extrinsic motivation is present in South Korea that drives to citizens to reduce their output of food waste, which is not in Singapore.

The efforts in Singapore are also progressing at too-slow a pace. Despite various efforts in the previous years, the total amount of food waste has generally seen a upward trend over the last decade. While taking baby steps allows a natural and integrative approach for change to take place, the steps taken cannot be too small that no significant change is achieved. Singapore needs to step up on her speed in reducing food waste within her nation. As of now, 2019 has been designated as the year of Zero Waste, including a year long combat against food waste. Given the span of a year, we can only wait to see how efficiently the amount of food waste has been reduced.

Interestingly, Singapore has been notorious for and yet successful in employing such control in other aspects, such as in littering and smoking in public places. This method can also be considered for controlling food waste.

What won’t work

Singapore cannot however, cut and paste the strategies of South Korea. In her article on the matter of food waste recycling in South Korea, Straits Times South Korea correspondent Chang May Choon brought up that one of the issues faced by Singapore is the difference in climate. Being a tropical country, organic matter decomposes much more rapidly in the hot and humid conditions, against the temperate climate in South Korea, which is relatively drier and has lower temperatures year-round except for summer. Hence should Singapore want to adopt having the specialized food waste bins in residential areas, a different design is needed to keep the smell of decaying food contained, conditions sanitary and vermin out.

The need to hire more manpower is also a concern given that most of such manual work is done by foreign labour and locals will not want to pick up such lines of work.

The strict government regulations in food waste also has to be administered carefully. There is a risk of the overjustification effect resulting from too-tough measures. Simply explained, overjustification effect occurs when the reason for a person to act in a certain way is purely extrinsic, and hence people lose the motivation to continue with the enforced action. The true value for whatever effort that has been enforced will be undermined.

Should this tactic be employed in future, it has to be coupled with effective public education to facilitate in the internalisation of the true values behind the mandated food waste regulation.

In short, Singapore has much to step up in her efforts at reducing food waste and emulate from South Korea. Their methods can be adopted and tweaked to accommodate the different needs of the Singapore environment and society.