I had an interview a while back and was asked what do u think company X needs to do more of to make Singaporean more green?
I stupidly or naively answered ” avaliability of recycling bins”
Well, needless to say i was shot down ( verbally) and the rest is history. I was gently told to do more reading of world issues afterwhich.
Since my skin has grown an inch thicker, i sucked it in and now i think about my stupid answer and i find some wisdom in my stupid and shallow answer.
1) I have indeed seen more recycling bins all over this tiny island- many of which still remain half full and most are full of trash. They have increased the number of green bins right??
2) When people see a green bin, they would perhaps be reminded and the avaliability of a bin would induce me to recycle.
3) The young ones see these bins, hopefully telling their gramps or parents abt the usefulness of the bins and viola, one more recycling addict?
On the other hand, A bin is just a bin. People’s mindsets and habits are the ones that need alot of changing.
Living in Europe has equipped me with hope and faith that one day Singaporeans will quit their addictions to plastic bags, recycle and be truly green.
We are an educated nation with a consumerism mindset. That means more resources- plants, animals, land, water,communities are all being exploited at an alarming rate.
We dont see animals suffer or the destruction of land, folage and habitat. We only see the end product of a vicious cycle of destruction.
Even when i go out to the shops to purchase stuff, i try to refuse the plastic bag and all i get is a weird ass look. A thank you for saving the earth look would be much better!
Being an educated country seems to have little effect on the “greeness” of the people. It seems that the price will be a more likely motivating factor!
I am sure a price hike in the price of plastic bags and making people pay for it all the time( not just the first wednesday of the month or whatever) would definitely induce singaporeans to use the millions of bags they have stored somewhere.
Come on.
Also, if the residents rubbish weighs over a certain amount of spills out of the bin, people should be charged for it.
However, Singaporeans are already feeling the pinch of rising oil costs and the general standard of living is on an uphill climb. I dont think raising prices of basic consumables would be fair? What do we do than?
Maybe some company needs to make recycling profitable for people to want to do it.
Charge the people, Reward the people with money. These may be whats needed to get Singaporeans green…
Why must there be a price consequence in order to snap people out of non green habits?
Sigh, i love the earth and all the beauty it holds and watching all of it melt away in the hands of humans is not good.
Maybe one day all the world will learn from the Europeans where each and every person is responsible for the health of their environment and where being NON GREEN will most likely earn you a ” u bad bad person” type of stare.
Plastic bags arent the only issue at hand. Simple measures can be taken to help our world too..
— Setting aircons to 25 Degree
— Changing to an energy efficient light bulb
— Switching off any electrical appliance
— Not consuming or buying any tiger or sharks. And never ever buying any chinchilla, seal, mink stuff!
ITs simple!
Moving on we have issues of cars. Why dont we have SMART CARS? They are so small, so zippy, and fuel efficient! We need more cars that consume less fuel and run on solar power or something. Bicycles can really reduce a persons carbon footprint to nearly Zero. But the islands infrastructure is not built to be bicycle friendly…..
Theres only that many reources in this world and do we really know what we are doing when we dont do anything at all?
A pending ice age, the dwindling of resources, the extincition of spieces of plants and animals, the brutality towards animals by multinational companies and a probable war( due to the shortage of resources namley land and water)… Education is not education if people dont use it.
Impact of Climate Change
GO GREEN!
