ESE1001 Term Paper

Problem Statement
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM : Waste

Area of focus : World.
Focused on human waste solid, liquid (poison, toxin), air (these are grouped under
pollution)
Why is it significant for the next 5-10 years?
o Sustainable Cities

Introduction / Background
-

Fresh Kills the largest landfill in United States closed off in 2001 due to lack of
space
Personal Experience : Green Canteens
Personal Experience : Inter Coastal Cleanup Singapore
Why is this a problem of our concern?
o Amount of waste Singapore produces SO MUCH! But yet where do we
dispose them away? Singapore is one of the country with the smallest land
space in the world.
o Singapore has poor awareness of municipal waste management. So many food
centres
o Landfill is a space that is diminishing rapidly
o Bacteria everybodys health, nature. We are living in this world
o Effect other environmental aspects
Water
Air
o
Source of waste
o Consumption habits
o Construction and demolition
Rubble left after a building has been torn down, remodeled and built
Construction activities expected to increase exponentially over the next
5-10 years why? (increasing competition, faade of a country is
important, economic activities)
Over 140million tons of waste per year + 230 million tons of
municipal solid waste, 1.5kg per person per day (source :
Environmental Science, A growing concern Cunningham)
o Food Cosmestics

Current Solutions
Current Aims : Zero Waste
Most of the current solutions are good but they can be improved (elaborate below each
solution)
Incinerators

How does it work? Effectiveness? A long term solution?

Pros : Generate electricity?
Cons : Expensive to build and operate, can produce dangerous air contaminants
including dioxins from burned plastics and heavy metals shifting one problem to
another (air pollution)

Sending waste to commercial recyclers

-

Taylor Recycling Montgomery, New York

Landfills (offshore)
-

Personal Experience : Visit to Pulau Semakau. Projected to be filled up by 2045

One of the best landfills? (beautifully camouflaged to seem like a recreational island)
Create new land for land scarce Singapore? Is it liveable?

Advocate use of Reusable Shopping bags

-

Producing so much, giving out freely waste.

Dumping into the sea

Dumping into space
Raising Awareness/Cultivating habits
-

Holding talks to primary school students

Not just citizens but also government (not one of their agenda)
Improvements : how to make people understand that this is an issue of their concern
(They do not feel the cost of savings from reduced waste maybe rewards)
Garang Gunis : They earn a lot (collecting waste free). No expenditure
Distributing recycling bags every month. Singaporeans use it for other purposes.
http://www.facebook.com/SaveFoodCutWaste

Future Solutions
Must be Sustainable
Recent discovery : Sphingomonas serving as the primary decomposer with help from
Pseudomonas
-

What can be done to remove waste?

Characterisitics of Human waste
o http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/10/111026-haitiwaste-poop-fertilizer-farms-soil-science-environment/

o (NTU) New Toilet Turns Human Waste Into Electricity and Fertilizer
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120626072942.htm

o Human waste into Fuel (Korea) Worth Exploring into

http://www.dailytech.com/South+Korea+Aims+to+Turn+Human+W
aste+to+Fuel/article27566.htm

What can be done to reduce waste?

o It is not a sustainable solution to keep producing waste and finding a solution
to extradicate them. A more viable solution is to reduce to amount of waste
generated in the first place.
Personal Experience : Reference to other countries
o Segregating waste items
o Ban on plastic bags
o In addition, Singapore is an ALPHA CITY World/Global city

Ban plastic bags use. Converting disposable cutleries, plastic bags to biodegradable material
(corn)
-

Are hawkers willing to fork out this amount of money no incentives for them
government to subsidise them? Not fork out the full amount or they will distribute
them freely.
Tax Plastic bags : Customers feel that they should have the right to take plastic bags
as they have paid for them. will complain > hawkers are the one to take the blame
from them. NTUC gives out free plastic bags.
Ban plastic bags : seen effective in a lot of countries. Affect business as people may
not deem that the area is convenient. Nation-wide, unhappiness? Affect Singapores
economy?

Soft and Hard approaches

-

Hard : impose fine on hawkers, companies, familes

Evaluation
o Can everyone afford environmentalism?
o Can these be implemented in the short run?
o How effective can these measures be?
o Age, Income level

Conclusion
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A very profitable sector

(http://www.spring.gov.sg/NewsEvents/ITN/Pages/Waste-managementsector-set-to-expand-20120328.aspx)

Which is the most viable solution to work on? Awareness? Cultivating habits
Can be applied to other countries?
Expand to SEA?

http://app.mewr.gov.sg/web/Contents/contents.aspx?ContId=680
http://www.mof.gov.sg/budget_2012/expenditure_overview/mewr.html

http://linc.nus.edu.sg/search~S16?/Ywaste&searchscope=16&SORT=D/Ywaste&s
earchscope=16&SORT=D&SUBKEY=waste/1%2C4785%2C4785%2CB/frameset&
FF=Ywaste&searchscope=16&SORT=D&17%2C17%2C |
http://www.sciencedirect.com.libproxy1.nus.edu.sg/science/book/9780123814753
(outdated?)
http://app2.nea.gov.sg/data/cmsresource/20090316748986342293.pdf
http://www.sembcorp.com/en/business-on-site-servicessolid_waste_management.aspx
http://www3.ntu.edu.sg/r3c/PDF/News/R3C_International_Symposium/Day
%201_AM/Day%201_AM_HL%20Cheong.pdf
http://app2.nea.gov.sg/topics_waste.aspx
http://www.asiaisgreen.com/2008/05/25/waste-management-and-recycling-insingapore/
*** http://www.zerowastesg.com/2012/03/27/singapore-waste-statistics-2011/
http://www.nus.edu.sg/oes/pdf/eco-eb-19jan.pdf
http://www.eco.com.sg/
http://foodwasterepublic.com/category/blog/2010/03/the-food-waste-recyclingdilemma/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/05/22/us-waste-singaporeidUSSP9046620080522
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1204325/1/.ht
ml
http://epi.yale.edu/epi2012/rankings
http://www.treehugger.com/

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