Masagos speaks of move towards circular economy at UN event
Cheryl Teh Straits Times 15 Mar 19;
Singapore will continue to step up efforts to turn trash to cash, with initiatives like the $45 million "Closing the Waste Loop" fund to support research and development and businesses that want to work towards a zero waste future, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli said.
Speaking at the fourth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi, Kenya, yesterday, he said: "We must take urgent action to protect our planet for future generations."
The minister added that to develop in a sustainable manner, a paradigm shift is needed, for people to change their production and consumption patterns from a linear "take-make-throw" approach, to a circular one where resources can be re-used endlessly.
This circular approach, Mr Masagos said, will be supported by three pillars of action.
These are reducing production and consumption; building a strong foundation in science and innovation to turn waste into resources and by doing so, generate new economic spin-offs; and enhancing global and regional cooperation, to shift economic systems in a more sustainable direction.
"The key to achieving sustainable consumption and production, is to reduce what we produce and consume," Mr Masagos said, noting that Singapore has designated 2019 as a Year Towards Zero Waste.
The $45 million Closing the Waste Loop fund is not the only investment that Singapore is making in the area of clean energy.
Mr Masagos cited another large-scale project Singapore is embarking on: the Tuas Nexus.
Construction on the Tuas Nexus, intended to be a "world first integrated facility for used water and solid waste treatment", will start this year.
The facility "leverages circular economy principles to reap synergies from the water-energy-waste nexus", Mr Masagos said.
Though national efforts are critical, they are insufficient to address global environmental challenges, he added.
The minister noted how regional and global platforms like the UN Environment Assembly, and the recent third forum of ministers and the environment authorities of the Asia-Pacific, which was held in Singapore in January, are important forums to galvanise action on a wider scale.
Yesterday, Mr Masagos also delivered a statement on the outcome of the January forum where officials from 41 countries across the Asia-Pacific region gathered in Singapore to discuss environmental matters.
He noted that the meeting saw a record turnout of over 35 high-level representatives, including a head of state, a head of government and ministers.
The meeting met its four key outcomes, Mr Masagos said. This included success in identifying the priority issues on sustainable consumption and production in the Asia-Pacific region, and tracking the positive progress on how the region has implemented the resolutions and decisions made at the last UN Environment Assembly.
Other outcomes were a draft Ministerial Declaration that was "ambitious but practical", and a collective recognition among the countries present of the need to have new forms of economic growth, such as the approach of the circular economy in transforming waste into resources. The forum also resulted in a request to the United Nations Environment Programme to scale up work on marine litter and plastic management, and to raise awareness on air pollution at the national level.
The next ministerial meeting will be hosted by South Korea.
'Pay-as-you-throw' system to limit household waste?
Cheryl Teh Straits Times 15 Mar 19;
A National Environment Agency (NEA) official has raised the possibility that Singapore residents may in future be asked to "pay as you throw", as part of efforts to monitor and limit rubbish dumped by households.
This could involve bin chutes that use radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to track how much waste any one household produces, he said at a major sustainability conference on Tuesday.
"We are working on a trial to track the number of times a household opens a rubbish chute hatch, with each opening accepting only a fixed volume of waste," said Mr Cheang Kok Chung, director of the NEA's department for environmental protection policy and international relations.
"(There is a) glaring lack of a 'pay as you throw' element in the (waste disposal) fee," Mr Cheang said, adding that Singapore's ubiquitous rubbish chutes made it very difficult to implement a "pay as you throw" system using prepaid waste bags.
He was speaking at a presentation during the 2019 Sustainable Innovation Expo in Nairobi, Kenya. The Expo is being held on the sidelines of the fourth United Nations Environment Assembly meeting.
Each HDB household currently pays $8.25 a month for waste regardless of the amount thrown away. With this new scheme, some might end up paying less.
Said Mr Cheang: "Hopefully (the trial) works and the next time we can report that we are a bit closer to the 'user-pay principle' tax."
If there are monitoring systems like RFID tags, people might be motivated to throw less rubbish indiscriminately, which would mean less rubbish landing up in Semakau, Singapore's only landfill.
According to the latest figures, about 200,000 tonnes of solid waste and all incineration ash are sent to the landfill annually.
At this rate, Semakau will be filled to the brim by 2035. It was envisaged earlier that the landfill, when it first opened in 1999, would last until 2046.
Singapore currently has the technology to use RFID tags on bins.
According to reports in 2016, recycling collection crews could scan RFID tags on recycling bins upon collection for recyclables to be tracked in a system.
It is not impossible to implement such a project.
The "pay as you throw" principle has worked in other countries.
In South Korea, for example, households can buy designated bags to dispose of their trash, or take it to centralised RFID food waste and rubbish bins.
There, the trash will be weighed and the household billed accordingly.
The NEA told The Straits Times yesterday that there are currently no plans to introduce pay-as-you-throw RFID waste disposal systems in Singapore.
"Building on lessons from past trials and other countries' experience, the National Environment Agency is constantly exploring ways to incentivise households to reduce the amount of waste disposed of," an NEA spokesman said.
"There is no current plan to implement a pay-as-you-throw RFID waste disposal system," the spokesman added.
Cheryl Teh
