‘We’re just outsourcing our guilt’: YouTuber questions Singapore’s recycling efforts

SINGAPORE: A well-known YouTuber expressed frustration with recycling in Singapore, claiming these are just efforts to ease people’s consciences.

Jeremy See, who rose to fame with his epic road trips, is not the first to have this type of criticism, and perhaps won’t be the last, as the topic has been discussed even in Parliament.

“Singaporeans outsource our guilt. Your recycling efforts are pointless,” he wrote in a July 8 Facebook post.

He put up a picture of a garbage truck, saying that the sanitation worker was throwing the contents of a blue recycling bin into the recycling truck was a “beautifully ironic metaphor for our entire recycling system.”

While many compliant Singaporeans wash, dry and separate their trash in an effort to save the environment, a less conscientious neighbour treats the recycling bin “like their personal dumpster,” throwing in food, “a half-eaten box of oily pizza or a soggy cup of bubble tea straight into the mix,” which contaminates the bin.

“Your 10 minutes of careful washing and drying are instantly erased by a wave of literal garbage juice, rendering everything useless,” he added.

After that, the garbage is sorted by “an army of people in warehouses have to undo our good deeds,” which Mr See called a “staggering waste” of time and money.

He further opined that the recycling bin is “not a recycling miracle worker” but a “national comfort blanket” since only a small portion of items get recycled, and the bigger portion is incinerated.

“Our world-class, 1st-world infrastructure? It’s all just ‘hardware’ to hide our 3rd-world ‘heartware’. We’re not recycling; we’re just outsourcing our guilt,” added Mr See.

Judging from the comments on his post, many Singaporeans have had the same experience as Mr See, saying that they’ve followed recycling rules for the blue bins but their neighbours neglect to do so.

Others noted that efforts to teach about recycling should come at an early age, in the same way that it’s done in Japan and Taiwan.

In Parliament earlier this year, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu said that the contamination rate for recycling bins and chutes has remained at 40% since 2018, though she added that the National Environment Agency (NEA) launched a number of initiatives to address the issue of contaminated recyclables.

“We aim to reduce the contamination rate as much as possible. We are monitoring the results of ongoing efforts to improve recycling outcomes,” Ms Fu said.

Some officials have taken matters into their own hands, such as Tampines MP Charlene Chan, who shared in a video last month how she went through the contents of a recycling bin. /TISG

Read also: Tampines MP dives into dumpster bin to show the mistakes people make in recycling