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Official
Magazine of the Nature Society (Singapore)
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| Battling
the Curse of Marine Litter International Coastal Cleanup Singapore The Curse of Marine Litter | Situation in Singapore mangroves | What the data tells us | Want to help? What the data begins to tell us Along with the 77 participating countries, we submitted country reports to the Ocean Conservancy, USA, a marine conservation group. With international data sets stretching back 14 years, they are able to make representation to the United Nations about the global problem, and to push for laws and enforcement against dumping trash in the ocean. In Singapore, the mangrove clean-up is a much smaller operation (400 versus more than 1,000 on beaches). It reflects the safety limit imposed on the tougher terrain and also, it is an attempt to protect the forest from our impact - better a gradual process to remove decades of litter, than a fast destructive approach. Even so, in just 90 minutes, some three tonnes of debris were removed, of which over 90% was plastic and foam plastic.
As for hardy plastic straws, another regular feature in cleanup data, George Jacobs, one of our regulars, fails to understand why we still use straws to drink, after the age of four.  The
data from bags and plastic pieces add to the compelling argument offered
by saturated land fill areas on mainland Singapore - the fact that the only
landfill we have is at Pulau Semakau, one of our southern islands, designed
to last until 2030. Issues like reducing waste in packaging, or more simply,
the use of plastic bags at supermarkets remain pertinent. Apparently, more
than one million plastic bags are handed out each day in Singapore. Yet
supermarkets are reluctant to impose a charge for plastic bags. Although
these would save major supermarkets a few million dollars a year, the cost
of irate customers is apparently not worth the effort. Hence efforts by
the Singapore Environment Council received lukewarm response earlier this
year (Kaur, 2002).Perhaps, significant change will only be achieved when the situation becomes more serious. Both Asian and Western countries are taking action. In Ireland you pay for plastic bags, and the UK is examining this approach. Bangladesh has banned polythene bags for jute, boosting their ailing jute mill industry (Chazan, 2002). In Taiwan, mainly government establishments are banned from offering free plastic bags and eating utensils, and a campaign is dissuading people from using plastic bags and disposable plastic utensils (Chiu, 2002). Obviously, significant effort still needs to be invested in educating the public. It is not a short haul job, as our own Ministry of the Environment can tell us. We must continue in our efforts in various ways, and remain hopeful that one day, the combined efforts of all, locally and internationally, will reduce the problem of trash to such an extent, that the International Coastal Cleanup effort becomes a vague but pleasant memory. Links For information and photos:
If you would like to help in any capacity, please email: N. Sivasothi at:  References BARNES, D. K. A., 2002. Invasions by marine life on plastic debris. Nature, 416 (25 April 2002). CHAZAN, D., 2002. A world drowning in litter. BBC News, 4 March 2002. CHIU, Y. T., 2002. Confident EPA says public will warm up to plastic-bag ban. Taipei Times, 23 April 2002. DHALIWAL, l., 2002. Bombay gets tough on plastic bags. BBC News, 14 May 2001. KAUR, S., 2002. 1 million plastic bags change hands each day. The Straits Times, 3rd April 2002. The Ocean Conservancy, 2002. 2001 International Coastal Cleanup - Singapore Summary Report. 11 pp <<Back to Issue contents |
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