WHAT CAN WE DO?

Singaporeans might perceived our country to be “safe” due to the lack of direct incurrences of any harmful natural disasters. Also, because of our country’s infrastructures, we don’t get a lot of contact with water (unless one works in jobs that deals with water). Therefore, it is more difficult for us to understand and comprehend the gravity of how bad the ocean really is. The only things we have assess to are just a truckload of information from sites, and media and we don’t often get feedback. Thereby, our risk perception really undermines the severity of our doings towards the environment.

But as we all know, the sea has been subjected to so much human damage and terrorisation, that it is starting to mimic how our lands are being threatened by agriculture purposes. Aquaculture, as part of a big industrial revolution, continues to treat the ocean as a big, large dumpsite causing inevitable consequences such as ocean acidification, HAB and plastic pollution. Despite how much damage we do to the ocean, according to the biophilia hypothesis, mankind still has an innate tendency to rely emotionally, physically and intellectually on the quality of our affiliations with the natural diversity. Without it, tragedy of the commons (Hardin, 1968) won’t be solved and annihilation of mankind is inevitable.

No doubt that there will be many obstacles that will hinder a successful management of oyster reefs. But if we are able to start from ourselves, we are able to save this extraordinary species.

Here are some ways that will get you started:

On a personal level

1. Recycle the shells of oysters after eating
   

Gather those empty oyster shells and dispose them in the water! These recycled shells help provide a surface for young oysters to settle and grow. Hard surfaces are still the best attachments. Over time, we can help oyster populations slowly restore and thrive once again!

2. Plastic recycling

Yes, all kinds of plastics can be recycled. Just note that before disposing your plastics into recycling bins, make sure they are not contaminated with oil or food waste. Just some detergent soap and a quick wash can help our recycling companies go a long way.

3. Reduce microfibre pollution

A study has found that, the synthetic clothing that we often wear are releasing micro-plastics in the ocean. Every washing machine wash releases thousands of micro-fibres, ranging from 12 μm to 18 μm in diameter and 5mm to 8mm in length, to different types of clothing materials.

Here are some ways that can help reduce microfibre pollution in your home:

• Using a colder wash setting
• Filling up the washing machine so that there will be less friction between the clothing, reducing the fibres released
• Buy clothes (e.g. from Muji) made from natural fibres like linen, cotton or wool.

“In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, to struggle together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life” – Albert Bandura

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On a Community level

1. Notifying food establishments about oyster shell cycling would contribute a great load to recycling.
   

When notifying restaurants, it is better to frame the message in an attributed way such that only a few features of a recycling project (like this) is focus on rather than all relevant features. Additionally, in goal framing, we can focus on the gains of undertaking this approach (e.g. “You help restore oyster reefs if you recycle”) or losses for not doing so (e.g. “The oyster population will die if you don’t recycle”).

2. HAB Monitoring system

As mentioned, HAB occurs sporadically, and the problem with it is that we are still unsure what the core causes of HAB are as it is not associated with any one particular species. Therefore, the lack of information reduces the effectiveness to detect pre-HAB conditions.

However, Singapore is currently developing a HAB monitoring system. With more data and algorithms, coupled with advanced technologies and improvement in bio-optical instruments, the dynamics of developing one seems promising. 

3. Oyster restoration

Fortunately, it is quicker to grow an oyster reef then a forest. They typically take 18 months to 3 years to grow into adults and they produce in a fast rate.

Oysters are placed in individual bags and laid side by side. Over time, the oysters will grow through the bags and attach themselves to one another, forming a hard reef structure.

In many countries, oyster restoration efforts have skyrocketed, and it produces positive results.

For more information on how you can help locally: visit www.wildsingapore.com

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On a National level

1. Adopting the Taiwan culture of recycling

Taiwan has one of the most efficient recycling system in the world. No doubt, adopting their approach would take years to implement, however, it can greatly benefit the recycling industry and the environment in a long run.  

Taiwan was once known as a garbage island however, with the help of government funding, recycling efforts has gone up to 55%. The residents will separate different types of trash in different types of bags – for example, food in one, and plastic in another. Yellow garbage trucks usually sound their music several times a week and residents will toss their trash into the trucks. Raw food can be composted for further usage such as fertilisers and cooked food can be used to feed farm animals.

Of course, there are laws and policies put up to facilitate with this. For example, non-recyclable wastes are stored in government certified blue bags that must be bought by the citizens. And fines are given to those who violate any rules.

Apparently, Singapore has already started looking into this issue and this was back in 2016, but there is still no news of change since. Therefore, if the government is willing to explore and discuss about this, the efforts of Singaporeans can really impact the world.

2. Ban certain products

Plastic microbeads often found in face wash or cosmetics have been banned in many countries such as Canada, UK and Singapore. According to a study done by Dr Jeffrey Obbard in 2014, he found that tiny plastic fragments like the microbeads have been found the coastal areas of Singapore including beach sand, seawater and drainage canals. Fortunately, retailers in Singapore has begun phasing out the use of microbeads. 

 With the conjoint efforts of the global world, each country and nation is slowly influencing one another. The banning of plastic bags are still in debate, especially when not all locals are in favour of it. 

Efforts thereby rely on the interest and knowledge of individuals, communities and government efforts. It is pretty evident that environmental efforts can sometimes backfire, and cause resentment amongst people. Or that, everyone has their own ideologies, causing a lot of things to halt and not be executed.

A study done by Dr. Hal Hershfield found that, aside from socio-economic reasons, a country’s age predicted its citizen’s motivation to be more environmentally friendly. The age of the country was linked to the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) and countries that has a longer past has a higher score in EPI. This might be one potential reason why different countries have differing concerns for the environment.

For example, in the case of Taiwan, the effects of the island garbage situation have caused the government to take on many measures. As part of their civics education programme, cleanliness are taught early in elementary schools where children are told to stay back to clean their classrooms for 20 minutes every day before heading home. This helps to cultivate a cleaning habit. Also, when you walk down the streets of Taiwan, you would notice that bins are hard to find. A study found that there are fewer than 2,000 bins in the streets of Taipei (a ratio of 1,300 people to 1 bin). However, even without bins, the streets are not dirty. Citizens would hold onto their trash until they find a bin, and many stores even reward customers monetarily if they return their disposable cups. Lastly, the authorities will reward informants of any offenders who litters (just like Stomp). This works because the public knows that they might get caught if they are found littering which is subjected to fines. This was so effective that the number of littering cases has dropped from 15,000 to 2,000 per month.

As we can see, education and a reward and punishment system has proven to be effective for these policies. The implementation of laws and regulations by the government helped change the ideologies of recycling in Taiwanese citizens. Additionally, due to availability bias, the thought of a garbage island would have come to their minds if they think about halting recycling. Then again, this takes many years of efforts and cultivation, not just from the government but from the citizens as well. Evidently though, it will progressively form deep historical roots in the hearts and pride of the citizens in the nation.

If a citizen’s perception of a country is that it has a long past, this might facilitate them to have a longer and broader view of the future, and this might enhance them to exhibit more environmentally conscious behaviour in a long run. Policy makers can harness on these results to promote their programmes in such a way that it promotes the country’s historic past more than its existence in its current political identity.

As mentioned, changes like the case in Taiwan takes years and it is really difficult to get everyone on board, but efforts from the government can definitely amplify the structures needed for execution. As long as the methods are environmentally conscious and helpful, then it will contribute greatly to the betterment of the environment.