Government calls tender for hawker centre food waste management pilot

The winning bidder will be tasked with leasing and maintaining food waste recycling machines, and training cleaners and stallholders at two hawker centres - as Singapore moves towards becoming a "zero-waste nation".
Channel NewsAsia 18 May 15;

SINGAPORE: The National Environment Agency (NEA) on Monday (May 18) called a tender for an on-site food waste management pilot to be run at Ang Mo Kio Block 628 Market and Tiong Bahru Market. The tender closes at 4pm on Jun 4.

NEA said in a press release that the two-year pilot aims to test the economic viability and operational feasibility of food waste segregation and recycling in hawker centres, as Singapore moves towards becoming a “zero-waste nation”.

The winning bidder will be required to provide the leasing and maintenance of two recycling machines, which will convert segregated food waste and leftover food from hawker stalls to either compost or water. The machines are expected to reduce the volume of food waste by at least 90 per cent per day, NEA said.

The company will also need to provide training and infrastructure for cleaners and stallholders to properly segregate the food waste, as well as submit project reports that will help authorities assess the success of the pilot.

The agency revealed that the two markets were selected for the pilot based on the number and mix of stall types, as well as the space available for food recycling facilities. Each of them is estimated to generate more than one tonne of food waste per day.

This hawker centre pilot - which is expected to launch in Q4 - is one out of two food waste management experiments planned by NEA for the year. The other aims to examine the economic viability of district-level food waste collection and off-site treatment at a centralised recycling facility, and will be conducted in Clementi.

- CNA/hs

Two hawker centres to get new food waste recycling machines
SIAU MING EN Today Online 19 May 15;

SINGAPORE — Food waste recycling machines will be placed at two of Singapore’s larger hawker centres in a two-year pilot, as part of the authorities’ overall efforts to curb the growing volume of food waste in Singapore.

These machines are expected to reduce the volume of food waste at the hawker centre by at least 90 per cent each day.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) called for a tender yesterday for vendors to supply the machines at Tiong Bahru Market and Ang Mo Kio Block 628 Market.

Contractors will have to lease and maintain two food waste recycling machines that can convert one-tonne worth of food waste from the hawker stalls to either water or compost. They are also expected to provide training and infrastructure for cleaners and stall holders to properly segregate food waste, said the NEA.

“The pilot aims to test the economic viability and operational feasibility of food waste segregation and recycling in hawker centres, as part of the Government’s efforts to move towards being a zero-waste nation,” a spokesperson said.

The tender will close on June 4, and the pilot is expected to be launched between October and December.

The two hawker centres were chosen based on the number and mix of stall types they had, as well as the space to house the machines. The centres at Tiong Bahru and Ang Mo Kio have 342 and 219 stalls respectively. TODAY understands that a good mix of stalls from these centres would provide more representative pilot results.

The pilot was first announced by Second Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Grace Fu in March.

Food waste accounts for about 10 per cent of the total waste generated in Singapore, but less than 15 per cent of it is recycled. Last year, 788,600 tonnes of food waste were generated, of which only 13 per cent was recycled. The rest of the food waste was disposed of at incineration plants, then landfilled.

Over the past 10 years, food waste has increased by about 48 per cent and is expected to rise further with a larger population and greater wealth.

Commenting on the pilot yesterday, Ang Mo Kio Block 628 Market’s hawker association chairman Lim Joo Song, 65, said while the pilot is a good idea, some hawkers were concerned with the extra work involved in segregating the food waste.

Mr Lim, who has been selling fresh seafood at the centre for 25 years, is also worried about machine breakdowns if the food waste isn’t properly segregated.

With a food recycling machine within the centre, Tiong Bahru Market’s hawker association’s general affairs representative Tan Soon Cheah, 54, felt it would make the recycling process cleaner as food waste would not be left in the open for long periods.

He suggested monetary incentives to encourage stallholders to change their mindsets and make a conscious effort to separate their food waste.

According to the tender documents, contractors will have to provide a project report every three months detailing the amount of food waste processed and incident and training reports, among other things.

At least once a day, contractors have to man the basic operations of the machine together with the cleaners, weigh and record the amount of food waste input, and the contaminants removed, among other tasks.

Contractors also need to have at least one year of “successful experience” in processing food waste in Singapore or elsewhere, and have sufficient trained personnel to provide service support.

Eco-Wiz, a local supplier of food waste digestors, has expressed interest in submitting a bid for the tender. “It’s very good for us to participate and try to encourage more food waste (to) be recycled rather than to go to the incinerator,” said chief executive officer Renee Mison, who believes Singapore will move in the direction of food waste recycling eventually.

A food waste digester with one-tonne capacity can cost about S$100,000 and take up about 15 sq m of floor space, said Ms Mison.

Supplying food waste digestors to hawker centres instead of hotels could mean a longer training period in the segregation of food waste, she added. “You are dealing with hundreds of different stall owners, so you have to educate them one by one.”

Cutting down food waste with machines
The National Environment Agency called a tender for a food waste management pilot to be run at two hawker centres. One company, Eco-Wiz, says it will be bidding for the tender.
Nur Afifah Ariffin, Channel NewsAsia 21 May 15;

SINGAPORE: Food waste accounts for about 10 per cent of total waste generated in Singapore. According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), 788,600 tonnes of food waste was generated in 2014, and only 13 per cent – or 101,400 tonnes of that amount was recycled.

The rest of it was disposed of at incineration plants and then landfilled.

NEA this week called a tender for a food waste management pilot to be run at two hawker centres.

One food waste management company, Eco-Wiz, said it will be bidding for NEA's tender. It will have to provide on-site recycling machines as well as relevant training for cleaners and stall-holders. It has helped more than 30 food establishments in Singapore recycle their food waste.

Swissotel Merchant Court’s General Manager Rainer Tenius said: "We are recycling approximately 1 tonne of food waste every day which, considering our total waste in our hotel, is approximately a 45 per cent reduction of our waste."

The hotel uses a waste disposal system to do the job. After food waste is segregated, it is dumped in another machine. Inside, microbes will decompose the food waste, which is done at a rate much faster than under natural conditions.

The sludge produced is then run though a grease separator and filtered. The process produces water that can be reused for various purposes, such as landscaping.

While the process looks simple, Eco-Wiz said the biggest challenge will be to train users about the importance of segregating food waste.

Eco-Wiz CEO Renee Mison said many cleaners feel “stressed out” about food segregation.

"We have a training programme and we simply train them on how to segregate the food waste with two different bins and we are going to tell them that it is important to segregate it from the source,” she said.

Marina Bay Sands uses a similar waste management system. It has five of such machines and recycles about 1.3 tonnes of food waste a day. The integrated resort is already looking at ways of improving its processes.

Executive Director of Sustainability at Marina Bay Sands Kevin Teng said: "We are looking at real tech-savvy ways to understand where our waste comes from. We are constantly looking at new and better technologies - whether it's a better enzyme mix or a new anaerobic process, whatever it is, I think we'd want to be at the forefront of that."

NEA's pilot food waste management programme is expected to be launched by the end of this year.

- CNA/dl