Straits Times 29 Apr 09;
SAVING the Earth starts at home for environmentally conscious Cindy Chng, a 20-year-old undergraduate.
She coaxed her mother to stop overloading the fridge and to switch off unused lights and appliances.
With the cooperation of everyone else at home, she shrank the family's utility bill by nearly a third.
The Chngs, who live in Choa Chu Kang, were among the finalists in a South West Community Development Council (CDC) energy-saving competition, run under the council's district-level 'sustainability' plan.
Other CDCs also have such district-level plans to promote energy saving, recycling and protecting the environment, all of which are in sync with the national sustainable-development blueprint launched on Monday.
The messages in this national drive are expected to reach an estimated 700,000 households - two million people in all.
The South West CDC, which looks after Hong Kah, Jurong, Clementi and other estates in south-west Singapore, aims to get 80,000 households there to switch to energy-efficient light bulbs and plant a million native plants in its HDB estates.
Likewise, the South East CDC has its '10% Energy Challenge', under which it urges households to cut their energy usage by 10 per cent.
Schoolchildren are another target of environment-education plans.
For instance, pre-schoolers in the North West District are drilled on good toilet etiquette and how to keep toilets clean.
And in the South East District, schoolchildren are trained as 'eco-ambassadors' and given the job of spreading the sustainability message to their peers.
GRACE CHUA
