Cleaners waste no time

Straits Times 2 Jan 12;

AN ARMY of cleaners hit the streets within minutes of midnight yesterday, even as the last fireworks lit up the skyline and strains of music still played over the air.

Their mission: To rid the streets of trash left behind by revellers, who had gathered as early as Saturday afternoon at various places such as Marina Bay, Orchard Road and Sentosa, to bid farewell to 2011 and welcome the New Year.

Marina Bay, the Promontory and The Lawn - a new and usually pristine field in the Marina Bay Financial Centre (MBFC) - were littered with plastic bags, cups and bottles, sheets of newspaper and the odd bunch of tinsel yesterday morning.

Lessons learnt from countdown parties in previous years, however, meant cleaning and maintenance firms were already out in force before the first fireworks were launched.

They said clearing up some of the litter during the celebrations would prevent the rubbish from piling up the next morning. But Ms C. F. Chong, an operations manager with Chye Thiam Maintenance, which cleared up the Marina Bay area, said cleaners were told to be careful when working among the revellers.

'If they cannot move in an area because of the crowd, they can wait for people to move away,' she said.

Cleaning firms said they had to deploy more staff this year because of more countdown parties and new spaces for people to enjoy the fireworks.

Ms Chong said almost 400 additional cleaners, including sweepers and scrubbers, were involved in the cleanup over the weekend. She is also expecting her firm to dispose of more than the 20 to 25 tonnes of waste they have been handling in previous years.

So far, the National Environment Agency said 3.8 tonnes of refuse has been collected from Orchard Road on New Year's Eve, up from 2.8 tonnes in 2010, said a spokesman yesterday.

Purechem Veolia, which was cleaning up after the Orchard Road party, deployed almost twice as many cleaners this weekend than previously. They worked between 10pm on Saturday and 3am yesterday.

Trash was also found on Siloso Beach in Sentosa, where about 18,000 people partied through the night.

Sentosa's environmental control executive Lee Pei Shi said 68 cleaners and two machines had been dispatched since 3pm on Saturday for the cleanup. She said progressive cleaning had to be carried out throughout the night to ensure that others could enjoy a clean beach the next morning.

At 7am yesterday, an hour after the party ended, one truck filled with about five tonnes of compacted rubbish left the beach, with some still to go. There were also large masses of foam left over from the foam pool, which Ms Lee said would either be raked over with sand or dissolved with water.

Cleaner Sundram Vallachamy, 44, who was at Sentosa, said: 'It is quite difficult to clean because there is so much trash and so many people. I think it will still be another two hours before we are done.'