Impacts of Junk Collection.

What impacts does collecting aluminium cans, glass bottles and cardboard have?

In fact, there are many impacts of the actions by these elderly people. While they may not realize it, their role is important and have far-reaching effects to the community and environment.

The Financial Impacts. 

credit:http://www.zerowastesg.com/2015/03/20/singapore-waste-statistics-from-2003-to-2014/

Recycling cardboard saves on spending to dispose of waste. This is especially important in Singapore where waste disposal even through WTE systems reduce the volumes, it is still a huge amount. In 2014, the total waste generated is 7514500 tonnes. This equates to 1.37 tonnes of waste produced per person in year!

credit:http://blog.nus.edu.sg/singapore2100/2014/10/

The landfills are expected to meet Singapore’s needs until 2040. After that though, perhaps we need to spend another S$610 million to built another landfill to meet our waste disposal needs. This on top of building a new incinerator plant which costs $900 million every 5-7 years.

credit:http://www.zerowastesg.com/2015/03/20/singapore-waste-statistics-from-2003-to-2014/

The efforts of cardboard collection by the elderly help drive the recycling rates for paper waste. Singapore’s paper recycling rates are 52% of the total paper waste generated. The cardboard collection by the elderly would save $557 958 yearly and this amounts to an estimated 2 553 tonnes of cardboard out of the 1 237 400 tonnes of paper waste generated. The savings made by recycling paper is immense and large benefit to our society.

 Potential Hazards.

The disposal of these waste material along the roads if not being cleaned up by these elderly could contribute to flash flooding in that area.

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In recent times, heavy rainfall have caused flash floods to occur. This problem can be attributed partly to the inability for the drainage system to keep up with the high volumes of flows during heavy downpours. The blue areas in the picture below are flood prone areas taken from the PUB website. This is in close proximity with the areas that the junk collectors frequent. They run along the Rochor canal that leads to the Rochor River.

mpaFLoodThe problem could further be exacerbated by the blockage of drains by littler such as these items. More floods could occur in the future because of the lack of clean up by these collectors.

credit:denguealert.blogspot.com

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