Singapore has unveiled its innovative strategies and best practices toward plastic circularity as the highly advanced city-state seeks to reach its vision for circular economy by 2030.
Santhosh Manivannan, director for policy at the National Environment Agency, highlighted in a recent presentation the three-step strategy the Singaporean government is currently implementing to achieve circularity of resources.
He said the first step is to set clear policy directions, noting its importance for the private sector in particular. “We need to be very clear about what our strategy is and what our goals are so there’s a clear direction for travel for everyone,” Manivannan explained.
In line with this, Singapore launched its Zero Waste Masterplan in 2019, which has initially identified plastics, toothpaste and e-waste as priority waste streams. “In doing so we set ourselves very ambitious goals to increase our overall recycling rate to 70% and to reduce waste to landfill per capita per day by 30% by 2030,” said Manivannan.
After direction setting, the next step is to implement various initiatives to achieve circularity goals. “To catalyze the shift, we passed the Resource Sustainability Act in 2019 and mandated the annual reporting of packaging data and the submission of reduce, reuse, recycle plans to the National Environment Agency by producers of packaged products,” according to Manivannan.
At the same time, the Resource Sustainability Act introduced the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Framework where producers are required to bear the responsibility for the sustainable end-of-life treatment of their products.
We started with an EPR scheme for e-waste and we are also exploring the feasibility of expanding to other wastes including packaging waste from e-commerce, the environment official said.
After setting the policy direction and putting initiatives and regulations in place comes the third step, which is to execute “behavioral nudges” designed to change consumers’ way of handling plastics, said Manivannan.
“If you shop in any of our major supermarkets today you’ll be aware of the disposable carrier bag charge which is intended to nudge us to bring our own reusable bags and reduce our use of plastic bags. And at hawker centers, for example, where most of the Singaporeans will eat their meals, the use of disposables for dine-in meals was actually disallowed.”
And to complement all these measures, Manivannan said the government is working together with the industry as well. “(We) reached out to the businesses and consumers to communicate the message of reduce, reuse, and recycle and the reasons why we should all come together to change our behavior and habits.”
He added: “We believe that, over time, these nudges and these behavioral efforts will also pay dividends as we embrace a more sustainable production and consumption across the community.”
Meanwhile, Singaporean companies also shared their efforts to actualize plastic circularity in their workplace.
Jerid Soo, assistant general manager at Singaporean shipping company Pacific International Lines, emphasized that there are “common and accessible levers” companies can apply to mitigate plastic wastage.
These levers include reducing waste generation by changing business and administrative processes. For example, companies can switch to paper tape instead of cellulose tape or use tablets instead of printing and laminating things, said Soo.
Another lever is to facilitate recycling by improving access and removing barriers to this activity. Increase the recycling rate by making it easy for the employee to recycle plastic materials and aluminum cans, and by setting up facilities for collecting these materials and bringing them to recycling centers, Soo suggested.
The third lever entails the education and cultivation of a green-minded workforce through engagement and outreach programs. Make use of the many different avenues to educate your people and let them understand the impact of their actions on marine life thousands of miles away, he said. “If you are going to affect marine life you are going to have all this micro plastic in your food, for example.”
On the other hand, Semula Pte Ltd, a startup and social enterprise, tackles plastic pollution by collecting and processing plastic wastes into useful materials.
Jeryl Yep, co-founder and innovation lead of Semula, said the company is helping to solve the waste problem in Singapore by reducing plastic waste that would have gone to landfills and incineration plants and by easing pressure on natural resources through processing plastic waste into alternative materials.
“What we are trying to do here us to find applications for the waste in different industries that previously were not considered,” he added. “These can be used by businesses such as fabricators, builders, designers, and artists to reduce the need for new or virgin resources such as stones, wood, and marble.”
