Most packaging for consumer goods, such as food and drinks, are used just once before being thrown away.
GIF by The Container Store via GIPHY
In 2019, 1.55 million tonnes of domestic waste was generated in Singapore. Of that colossal amount, 1/3 was made up of packaging.
More than half of the packaging waste was made of plastic, but only 4% of plastic waste is recycled.
Most of Singapore’s unrecycled waste is incinerated and placed into the city-state’s only landfill – Pulau Semakau Landfill. This included the rest of the 96% of plastic waste left unrecycled in 2019.
At current disposal rates, Singapore’s only landfill will run out of space to store wastes by 2045.
However, due to the ever-increasing rate at which we use and discard plastic packaging, Pulau Semakau might be filled up by 2035 instead. There is a need to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in our landfills and find innovative solutions for the ones that do.