Being Eco-Friendly and Going Single-Use Plastic-free for a week in Singapore. A Dream or Reality?

SINGAPORE: Emptying a bag packed with the plastic I'd used in a week left me shocked and embarrassed. After all, it had never truly struck me how much of such waste I generated. Throughout the week, I tried to live "normally". This meant behaving precisely as I would have if I hadn't done this experiment, which served to audit my plastic use so that I would have an accurate picture of my wastage. So, plastic spoons, forks, bags, packaging, straws, plates, and bottles were scattered on the table before me.

According to the Singapore Environment Council's position paper published in 2018, Singapore uses about 1.76 billion plastic items yearly. This includes 820 million supermarket plastic bags, 467 million PET bottles, and 473 million disposable items.

According to the latest figures from the National Environment Agency (NEA), more than 1 million tonnes of plastic waste was generated in Singapore last year. Of this, only 6 per cent was recycled, and 944,000 tonnes were disposed of—the most of any form of waste.

To be clear, plastic isn't the only problem. Disposables—any items designed for single use before they are thrown away—aren't great for the environment either. They are often made from plastic but can also come from other materials, such as paper.

In 2020, about 200,000 tonnes of domestic waste disposed of in Singapore were disposables, according to NEA.