By MP for Aljunied GRC, Pritam Singh
[Delivered in Committee of Supply on 12 March 2015]
Mdm Chair, a number of my residents who reside at the Jalan Tenaga cluster have asked me what more can be done to improve community efforts at environmental protection and recycling. Some have suggested greater governmental intervention to ensure that commonly available plastic bags that are not re-used such as those used to pack kopi or tea be phased out over the long term in favour of biodegradable cups, not too different from the Cornware cups available at the member’s lounge, which are coincidentally produced by a Singapore company.
In fact, some hope that the government can pass a law so that all plastic bags in circulation today can be fully biodegradable instead of the High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) bags in wide circulation today. However, the application of this positive suggestion is not so straightforward in practice as our waste-to-incineration plants burn the larger plastic bags that are reused for waste disposal by many Singaporeans, and it is open to question how significant the impact would be should biodegradable bags be used instead of HDPE bags given the Singapore waste management ecosystem. There is also the question of the type of biodegradable bag that ought to be introduced, because of the different manufacturing processes that can be equally environmentally unsustainable, even if the current HDPE bags are certainly an environmental worry as about 1.2kg of crude oil is used to manufacture 1kg of plastic bags.
Madam Chair, late last year, the European Union began deliberating whether member states could choose to either ban free plastic bags for shoppers by 2018, or take measures to make sure that the average consumption of such bags drops to 90 a year for each person by 2019 and to 40 by 2025 from a high of 200 today.
I would like to ask if Minister would consider working towards new initiatives to alter consumer behaviour to move to lower Singapore’s environmental footprint, and separately, to incentivize companies and users to move away from plastic bags to more environmentally sustainable products, where it is appropriate in our waste disposal context. Would the NEA consider implementing long-term targets like in the EU to move Singaporeans towards greater environmental consciousness as part of its Sustainable Singapore 2015 blueprint.