PM reacts to meadow of trash that music fans left behind
Help S'pore progress from cleaned city to truly clean, he posts
By Rachel Chang, Assistant Political Editor, The Straits Times, 29 Jan 2015
Help S'pore progress from cleaned city to truly clean, he posts
By Rachel Chang, Assistant Political Editor, The Straits Times, 29 Jan 2015
REVELLERS at the Laneway music festival last weekend left a meadow of trash at the Gardens by the Bay, prompting Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to urge Singaporeans to pick up after themselves.
He posted a picture of the litter-strewn meadow taken last Saturday, contrasting the scene to a picture of a Myanmar football fan picking up litter after a match at the Singapore National Stadium last November.
Post by Lee Hsien Loong.
"It takes continuous effort to keep Singapore clean. We need to progress from being a cleaned city to a truly clean city," he wrote on Facebook yesterday.
"All of us can play a part - picking up our own litter, educating our children and grandchildren, and reminding others to do the right thing."
Some of the 13,000 festival-goers said they assumed the organisers hired cleaners for the all-day event, while anti-littering advocates said the Laneway detritus was another example of a deep-seated societal problem.
Mr Liak Teng Lit, chairman of the Public Hygiene Council (PHC), said he has heard Singaporeans argue they are providing cleaners with jobs, an excuse he said was a self-justification.
"It is so easy to pick up after yourselves. The problem here is a selfish, take-things-for-granted ingrained mindset," he said.
A National Environment Agency survey in 2010 found that one-third of the respondents said they would litter if they could get away with it.
"It didn't occur to me to take my trash away when I left because there was trash everywhere left by others," said Mr Wei Chua, 28, a senior product manager who was at the 19-act festival from late afternoon until midnight. "So, it seemed like an understanding that the festival hired cleaners."
A standard ticket to the festival cost $165, a price that sales executive Ho Minwei assumed factored in cleaning costs.
"There is no way that a festival of this scale could leave the grounds spotless, so the cleaning fees should be built into the price of the ticket," said the 27-year-old.
Still, she is concerned about the littering problem in Singapore, and picks up trash in her Housing Board neighbourhood. "There is nothing I can do about the root cause, which is that people assume someone will take care of their litter," she said.
Mr Liak noted that Singapore has 70,000 cleaners for five million people, while a city such as Taipei has 5,000 cleaners for a population of three million.
On a recent work trip, a PHC delegation spoke to officials in Taipei, where schools do not hire cleaners, so students are taught from a young age to clean up after themselves, he said.
"They told us, cleaning is a part of education. It teaches the value of labour and that it is not shameful to sweat," said Mr Liak. "In Singapore, we have let things deteriorate until we now have a crisis of cleanliness."
Singapore becoming a 'garbage city' without foreign workers, says ESM Goh Chok Tong
By Chew Hui Min, The Straits Times, 29 Jan 2015
By Chew Hui Min, The Straits Times, 29 Jan 2015
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong called out festival goers for not picking up their litter, and asked Singaporeans to make Singapore a clean city rather than a "cleaned" one.
A day later, Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong has taken to Facebook to do the same.
Comparing Tokyo and Singapore, he said that the Japanese capital had no rubbish bins in public places, but it is still litter free.
"Without foreign workers, Singapore is likely to become a 'garbage city'," Mr Goh said in the post.
Last Saturday, Meadows by the Bay was covered with discarded plastic ponchos, cups and other garbage after 13,000 festival goers attended the Laneway music festival there.
Post by Yahoo Singapore.
Post by The New Paper.