You must think that the Malays here are poor.
Surprise!
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Shitty fight: toilet chairman vs hygiene chairman
- Thread starter LITTLEREDDOT
- Start date
Surprise!
That's true also, muud brains not that smart n witty afterall !
Oh...that was your attempt at being witty? Let me laugh a bit. Ha ha ha h
Well...
Wit and sarcasm isn't your forte. Keep your day job.
Whether my forte or not not for u to judge..
But the fact never change a muud brain is always new n hardly used.. Let me laugh a bit also... Wakakaka!
May your Allah god bless your kind soul. Indeed he has taught u to have an evil mind mudslime!
Wakakakakaka....
Hmm......isn't there a contradiction somewhere? Thus your statement is false, untrue, illogical, wrong. But which?
U reckon "Kind soul" is u? Lol...
Evil mudslime like u! Called yourself a Muslim?
Day n night smearing other religions n races here n even condemning the food they eat!
Tsk tsk tsk... This is what Islam has taught u? What a disgrace!
Go and have some pork. It'll make you and the devil feel better.
The more u curse @others, the better.
..Allah will reward u... !
My dear, that was sarcasm. Not a curse.
Forum: Let citizens collectively try to solve dirty toilets issue
NOV 13, 2023
In a recent dialogue at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said Singapore must try hard to avoid having the Government be the sole solution to all problems (S’pore must be rigorous in helping those not catching up: PM Lee, Nov 9).
This call to action is particularly pertinent in addressing the dirty state of public toilets in hawker centres and coffee shops (Public toilets as dirty as in 2020 or dirtier now, Nov 10).
Despite regular surveys by the Singapore Management University highlighting the issue of cleanliness in public toilets, little progress has been made since 2016. The National Environment Agency’s Clean Toilet Campaign has unfortunately fallen short of expectations.
The Federation of Merchants’ Association Singapore, representing merchants and hawkers, and coffee shop owners have not taken decisive action to tackle this longstanding issue.
As Singaporeans, we must break free from the expectation that the Government is the sole solution provider and take ownership of problems affecting our daily lives.
The Government should empower the public to lead the charge in finding effective solutions for dirty public toilets.
By taking charge of initiatives related to cleanliness, supported by the Government’s guidance, we can collectively resolve this issue and start a new era in community-driven problem-solving.
The Government’s decades-long effort in projecting Singapore as a clean and green Garden City needs to be embraced by its citizens.
We should collectively develop a clean toilet culture, taking pride in our shared vision and actively contributing to its realisation.
Liu Fook Thim
This year’s clean toilet campaign to continue focus on flushing out bad habits
Cleaners Li Xiu Mei (left) and Yuen Kok Yeow hope people will look after a public toilet as if it were their own. ST PHOTO: HESTER TAN
Osmond Chia
Nov 21, 2023
SINGAPORE - As a cleaner, Ms Li Xiu Mei, 56, is often greeted by the pungent stench of human waste left overnight when she reports for duty in the morning.
She has also mopped up trails of faecal matter that have hardened on the toilet floor, unclogged toilets choked with waste left unflushed overnight, and scraped off lumps of toilet paper stuck on the walls by naughty youngsters.
“Some users wash up inside and leave footprints everywhere, and sometimes the toilets are choked with toilet paper,” said Ms Li, an employee at One Punggol Hawker Centre, in Mandarin.
“Each toilet normally takes around 10 minutes to clean, but these kinds of mess will take us anywhere up to an hour to clean.”
It seems Singapore still has some way to go to making it a habit to keep public lavatories clean – an issue the National Environment Agency (NEA) aims to re-emphasise in the latest edition of its Clean Public Toilets campaign. The campaign, which is in its fifth run, was started in 2018.
The 2023 campaign urges the public to be responsible, even when no one is around, and to make sure the floor and toilet seats are dry, as well as to use the flush.
Titled “Are you nice when no one’s around? Do it right for everyone”, the campaign is backed by the Public Hygiene Council, the Singapore Kindness Movement (SKM) and Restroom Association Singapore.
Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and the Environment Baey Yam Keng, who was at the campaign’s launch on Nov 21 at One Punggol Hawker Centre, made the rounds to promote the campaign to diners and food stall operators.
He said he hopes the campaign will remind toilet users to be responsible, and for operators to keep their toilets well maintained.
Mr Baey said: “There’s this interesting phenomena – when a place is dirty, people don’t mind making it dirtier, but if it is clean, we won’t want to make it dirty. So we are trying to create this virtuous circle... and that’s where everyone plays a part.”
Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and the Environment Baey Yam Keng said he hopes the campaign will remind toilet users to be responsible. ST PHOTO: HESTER TAN
The campaign comes on the back of souring sentiment about the state of public toilets here.
A study of more than 9,000 Singaporeans by Singapore Management University in 2023 found that two-thirds of respondents said public toilets in hawker centres and coffee shops either remain as dirty as they were three years ago or have become dirtier.
About 60 per cent of them said efforts in cleaning up public toilets were mostly futile, while only 6 per cent of Singaporeans felt clean toilet campaigns were helpful.
Responding to the survey, Mr Baey said: “I think the survey gives us a good indicator of the state of play today.”
He noted the findings that coffee shops, in particular, were struggling to keep their lavatories clean, and added that this could be due to manpower constraints.
The 2023 campaign urges the public to be responsible, even when no one is around, and to make sure the floor and toilet seats are dry, as well as to use the flush. ST PHOTO: HESTER TAN
As part of the campaign, NEA will reach out to at least 2,000 premises across the country, including food centres, parks, schools and sports facilities to promote the campaign message.
Ms Michelle Tay, SKM’s director of programmes and operations, said toilet operators can do their part to ensure that flushes and other equipment are working, while the campaign can nudge the public to be mindful of their own cleanliness.
There are usually only two cleaners assigned to clean the toilets at One Punggol Hawker Centre, said one of the cleaners, Mr Yuen Kok Yeow, 50, who hopes people will look after a public toilet as if it was their own.
Besides the toilets, he is also responsible for keeping the hawker centre clean, but often finds himself stuck in the loo for hours to clean up the mess left behind by visitors.
Mr Yuen said: “People always think there is someone else who will clean up after them. But I hope people will treat it like it’s their own home. We’d feel much more relaxed.”
Unfinished business: Toilets at hawker centres, coffee shops still too dirty
Singapore has much to be proud of when it comes to sanitation, but it has failed to get its hawker centres and coffee shops to clean up their act
Alec Morton and Jack Sim
A notable concern expressed about coffee shop toilets was lack of provision of toilet paper, suggesting shortcomings at a quite basic level. ST PHOTO: RYAN CHIONG
Nov 22, 2023
Since independence, Singapore has made huge strides in universal access to sanitation. According to World Health Organisation figures, Singapore is one of only four countries in the world where 100 per cent of the population can boast access to safely managed sanitation facilities. What’s more, Singapore is the largest of these four states and only one, Kuwait, is of comparable size: The other two countries are the tiny Monaco and Andorra, with populations of less than 100,000 people each.
As part of its efforts to ensure access to sanitation, Singapore mandated that private sector buildings must open their toilets for public use if they serve the public. As such, there is no shortage of common-use toilets in Singapore. There has also been a concerted and consistent public education effort to remind toilet users of their responsibilities, and the public has, generally speaking, done its part: Over the last few decades, the standard of common-use toilets has strikingly improved.
Unfortunately, progress has been underwhelming in one crucial area: Singapore’s hawker centres and coffee shops. In the 2022 Public Cleanliness Satisfaction Survey conducted by researchers from the Singapore Management University (SMU), only 63 per cent of respondents were satisfied with the cleanliness of toilets in hawker centres, and only 53 per cent in coffee shops, compared with 81 per cent for public toilets overall. A notable concern expressed about coffee shop toilets was the lack of provision of toilet paper, suggesting shortcomings at a quite basic level.
More recently, a team of SMU students led by SMU principal lecturer of statistics Rosie Ching has documented the state of the toilets in the country’s hawker centres and coffee shops, physically inspecting more than 1,000 toilets and interviewing almost 10,000 individuals. Their results were reported earlier in November. Ms Ching’s extensive and detailed work shows shortcomings in several dimensions of toilet cleanliness: not only the toilet bowl and seat, but also the floor, sink and rubbish bin. Readers also may have encountered lack of hand-drying facilities and liquid soap for handwashing, as well as dark colour decor and poor lighting, which make verification of cleanliness difficult.
Many diners may prefer not to think about this issue. Why not just enjoy your lunch and use the toilet elsewhere? However, the workers and vendors in the hawker centres and coffee shops do not have this privilege. For reasons of public hygiene, it is critical that toilets which are in regular use by cooks and food handlers should be kept to the highest standards of cleanliness. Unsettlingly, Ms Ching’s research shows that there is a negative correlation between closeness to cooking facilities and cleanliness of toilets. In other words, the closer the toilets to the cooking facilities, the dirtier they are.
There is now an evidence base over several years which shows both the scale and persistence of problems in this area. It is disappointing that the owners of the premises have not shown greater willingness to invest to address the issue. Unlike the shopping centres which were persuaded to see clean toilets as a service to customers, owners of hawker centres and coffee shops still seem to see clean toilets as an expenditure that does not bring additional profit. Even when government funds are available to support improvements, many owners do not take the trouble to apply.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) has clear guidance on what it expects from owners of common-use toilets. This advice applies to all public toilets in Singapore. The customers of hawker centres and coffee shops have the same biology as the customers of shopping centres: There is no reason why they should be expected to put up with a lesser standard of cleanliness. NEA has the power to sanction toilet operators who do not measure up to basic standards. The entrenched nature of the problem demands that it uses this power to its fullest extent.
Hawker centres and coffee shops have a special role in Singaporeans’ affections – they do not just provide convenient and low-cost meals, but are also a vital community meeting place. But, as have been shown in repeated public surveys, customers do notice when toilet facilities do not measure up to their reasonable expectations – and ultimately will vote with their feet. Enforcing compliance of toilets in these establishments to the standards met by other common-use toilets in Singapore is not only the final piece of unfinished business in the Republic’s toilet journey, but it is also an important part of ensuring that the hawker centres and coffee shops remain popular and sustainable in the years to come.
It is an opportune time to reflect on this issue. Nov 19 was World Toilet Day – observed by the United Nations and a day to reflect on the state of global sanitation. This day was first observed by the Singapore NGO World Toilet Organisation in 2001 as its founding day and adopted by the UN in 2013 as the result of a resolution by the Singapore diplomatic team.
The Republic has much to be proud of when it comes to showing others the way when it comes to universal sanitation, particularly on the roles of public and private financing and the importance of public education and individual responsibility. It now needs to ensure that the state of toilets at its hawker centres and coffee shops does not dim its brand.
- Dr Alec Morton is a professor at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow and a visiting professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore. Mr Jack Sim is the founder of the Restroom Association of Singapore and the World Toilet Organisation. More information about World Toilet Day 2023 can be found at https://www.worldtoiletday.info/learn
With so many households employing maids, not many children are used to clearing their crockery and utensils after each meal at home. Why would they do so automatically while in a hawker centre? They need laws to remind them that it is an offence not to do so.
Forum: Users must help keep coffee shop toilets clean
Dec 1, 2023The standard of cleanliness of coffee shop toilets has not been taken seriously by operators and users, leading to the “persistent problem” of bad toilet hygiene in Singapore (Unfinished business: Toilets at hawker centres, coffee shops still too dirty, Nov 22).
I often meet my friends for meals at coffee shops in different areas. Most of these places have one thing in common –the men’s toilets are cramped and dirty, especially the toilet bowls.
My friends say they are used to this and have no expectations that it will change.
On a recent trip to Malaysia, I found that the public toilets at highway rest stops are much cleaner than the toilets in coffee shops and hawker centres in Singapore.
Coffee shop operators have a responsibility to keep toilets clean, but users must also do their part to maintain cleanliness.
Tay Boon Suat
Forum: Provide co-funding for improvement works to public toilets
Dec 1, 2023I refer to the reports “This year’s clean toilet campaign to continue focus on flushing out bad habits” (Nov 22) and “Two-thirds of S’poreans find public toilets either as dirty or dirtier than in 2020: Study” (Nov 10).
In the first report, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and the Environment Baey Yam Keng said: “There’s this interesting phenomenon – when a place is dirty, people don’t mind making it dirtier, but if it is clean, we won’t want to make it dirty.”
This could be the reason public toilets in shopping malls are in better condition than those in coffee shops. Good infrastructure does make a difference in toilet cleanliness.
In 2020, National Environment Agency (NEA) introduced a Toilet Improvement Programme, with co-funding for improvement works for toilets in hawker centres and coffee shops.
According to the NEA website, this co-funding would run until March 31, 2022. Since more than two-thirds of the 9,400 interviewed perceived public toilets here to be in unfavourable condition, would such co-funding be made available again to encourage more coffee shop owners to improve their washrooms?
Recently, I visited the public toilet at Holland Village Market and Food Centre. The toilet bowls were clean, there was a motion-sensor rubbish bin at the door and a wall fan was directed towards the floor to keep it dry.
The wash basins, shared between the gents and ladies, were placed outside the toilet cubicles, so that water splashes from the basins would not wet the toilet floor.
There was a checklist which indicated that the toilets were checked four times a day. An automated air-freshener and a potted plant placed at a corner added to the positive toilet experience.
No wonder this toilet was given a five-star rating for the Happy Toilet Programme in the market and food centre category by the Restroom Association (Singapore) on Nov 16.
Hopefully, more public toilets could be upgraded to reach the standard of this “happy toilet”.
Candice Yeo Chay Hoon
Autonomous cleaning bot to start scrubbing public toilets in early 2024
The autonomous robot moves around the loo seeking out stains and areas to clean, guided by sensors. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
Osmond Chia
DEC 4, 2023
SINGAPORE - Keeping public toilets clean has been a long-time bane for cleaners here. But they will soon receive a helping hand to scrub, mop and dry toilets from a new colleague: a toilet-cleaning robot.
The autonomous robot moves around the loo seeking out stains and areas to clean, guided by sensors that give it a 3D view of its surroundings.
When there is a job to do, its swivelling arm picks up implements from a utility rack, like brushes and a steam spray attachment to blast stubborn stains and bacteria away.
Dubbed the Abluo – Latin for “cleanse” – the robot is intended to halve the time that human cleaners typically spend cleaning toilets so that they can focus on other tasks, said Mr Tuan Dung Nguyen, co-founder of HiveBotics, the cleaning automation start-up behind the robot.
Abluo, which began development at the start of 2021 and received support from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and JTC Corporation, is being trialled in toilets at industrial parks, hospitals, malls and the airport.
The robot’s public testing phase will begin in the second quarter of 2024, marking the final stage of its development before its commercial launch in July, said Mr Nguyen, 23, a mechanical engineering graduate who started the company with co-founder Rishab Patwari, 26. The pair met when they were students at NUS.
The inspiration to build a toilet-cleaning robot came after Mr Rishab’s friend, who owns a cleaning company, had to clean toilets himself due to a shortage of cleaning staff.
Keen to understand more about the needs of the public toilet cleaning sector, the pair applied for work attachments with cleaning service providers at NUS, malls and hotels in stints between January and September 2023.
“It was a very important learning process for us,” Mr Nguyen told The Straits Times. “The cleaners were very nice and they taught me how to clean efficiently and mix chemicals to get the best results.”
The insights gleaned from the experience enabled them to improve the tools and software to build a useful cleaning robot.
For instance, for the robot to reliably scrub away stains and wads of dried-up toilet paper, the team developed a steam spray attachment.
To simulate faecal stains to test the robot’s cleaning capabilities, the team used a chocolate mixture but found that chocolate would disintegrate more easily than the real thing. They then developed a mix of miso paste, yeast and other ingredients to form a stickier substance.
In its current form, Abluo is built to clean urinals, toilet bowls, sinks and mirrors.
It operates under the watchful eye of a human cleaner, who first inspects the toilet’s condition and carries out tasks the robot cannot yet do.
Co-founder and COO of HiveBotics Tuan Dung Nguyen with the company’s toilet cleaning robot. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
The HiveBotics team also needed to train the robot to recognise when a toilet is clean. Mr Nguyen said: “A robot can’t tell whether a place is clean like humans can with their (five) senses, so we needed to create a metric for the robot that quantifies what it sees.”
To measure cleanliness, the robot will soon be equipped with an ultraviolet sensor to detect stains that are invisible to the eye.
The HiveBotics team is working to upgrade the robot to mop floors and flush toilets, said Mr Nguyen.
HiveBotics’ toilet-cleaning robot assistant cleans toilet bowls, urinals, sinks and mirrors, as well as sanitises surfaces using a steam-cleaning system. PHOTO: HIVEBOTICS
Keeping toilets clean has long been a headache for the National Environment Agency, which in November refreshed its Clean Public Toilets campaign for the fifth time to urge the public to be responsible toilet users.
The HiveBotics project caught the attention of JTC’s LaunchPad initiative, which supports start-ups with resources to develop innovations and networking opportunities with investors, said Ms Priscilla Lau, manager of infocomm media and start-ups cluster at JTC.
When there is a job to do, the robot’s swivelling arm picks up implements from a utility rack, like brushes and a steam spray attachment to blast stubborn stains and bacteria away. PHOTO: HIVEBOTICS
NUS has also offered support to HiveBotics’ robot, which was brought to the university as a prototype in 2021, under its Graduate Research Innovation Programme. The programme provides researchers resources and funds of up to $100,000 to help them commercialise innovations.
NUS Enterprise associate vice-president Benjamin Tee said the project addressed the often overlooked but essential task of toilet cleaning.
“This is a very complex operation to automate,” said Prof Tee, “and it has the potential to address strategic challenges that Singapore and other developed economies faces such as manpower shortages and rising labour costs.”
Builder of toilet-cleaning robot took unconventional internship of cleaning loos
Co-founder and COO of Hivebotics Tuan Dung Nguyen with the company's toilet cleaning robot which is being tested by JTC in industrial parks. ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN
Osmond Chia
DEC 4, 2023
SINGAPORE - Mechanical engineering graduate Tuan Dung Nguyen rolled up his sleeves and took an uncommon internship as a toilet cleaner to understand the nitty-gritty of the work.
He applied for several stints to clean the loos at hospitals, hotels and the National University of Singapore (NUS) with a mission in mind: To design a robot that can clean toilets.
His first shift took place at NUS in 2023 on a January morning, when he shadowed a cleaner who showed him how to clean multiple toilets efficiently.
Mr Nguyen, 23, co-founder of HiveBotics, a start-up building a toilet cleaning robot, said: “She showed me all the tools needed, like the protective equipment and masks, and how to get the right mix of chemicals to scrub off stains properly.”
Soon, he worked his shifts alone.
Even though there were not many toilet users then as it was a study week, Mr Nguyen found the work tiring. “I couldn’t do any (other) work for the rest of the day,” he said about juggling work as a cleaner and at HiveBotics.
Cleaning became trickier when students returned, he recalled. Some users would make a mess in the toilets in the late hours, leaving it overnight for cleaners to tidy up in the morning.
“The busier the area, the more there is to clean,” said Mr Nguyen. This was especially so in malls, where he would find clumps of toilet paper in the morning.
For most cleaners, toilets are just one of the areas they are assigned to clean. And it is also the place they dread the most, he learnt.
Employers find it hard to hire enough cleaners, he said. Some cleaners even state in their contracts that they do not want to clean toilets, his colleagues told him.
“Many cleaners I worked with are seniors, and cleaning the toilets is very tiring for them,” he said. “On top of this, they also have the general areas to clean – like classrooms or canteens.”
The issue is not limited to schools or hotels. A study by the Ministry of Manpower in 2023 found that cleaners are among the toughest operational roles to hire for today, along with bus drivers and security officers.
Mr Yuen Kok Yew, 50, a cleaner at a hawker centre in Punggol, said robots could come in handy to support the shortage of cleaners.
Where he works, only two cleaners are assigned to keep the toilets and other premises clean each day.
He said in Mandarin: “It could be helpful in the future. But the robot needs to be able to get into areas difficult to clean, and the cleaners will probably still need to be around to monitor its progress.”
Mr Tuan Dung Nguyen during his work attachment as a toilet cleaner. He worked his shifts alone. PHOTO: COURTESY OF MR TUAN DUNG NGUYEN
Everyone, including the premises’ operators and the public, has a role to play.
DEC 13, 2023
We refer to Mr Tay Boon Suat’s letter on how dirty coffee shop toilets are an issue that needs to be addressed (Users must help keep coffee shop toilets clean, Dec 2).
Public toilets at food establishments are an essential amenity, especially to the stallholders, food handlers and cleaners who work there.
Dirty and wet toilets are prone to breeding germs and viruses. It is thus important that the toilets in food establishments are kept hygienically clean.
We need to recognise that keeping public toilets clean is a joint responsibility.
Everyone, including the premises’ operators and the public, has a role to play.
Clean public toilets can be possible only if everyone does their part to keep them clean.
It has been more than a year since the Public Hygiene Council started the Neighbourhood Toilets Community Group initiative to drive home the message of collective responsibility in keeping public toilets clean.
While the initiative started only as a pilot scheme, the participating coffee shop operators and community volunteers observed that toilet cleanliness at their participating premises has improved significantly since the pilot.
More needs to be done, and the first thing to do is to start recognising that we cannot hope for a clean Singapore if the toilets are dirty.
We always think it is someone else’s job to keep public toilets clean.
This is a total misconception; we need to be more civic-minded and adopt a culture of change in picking up litter, as well as in keeping public toilets clean, just like we do in our home.
Andrew Khng
Chairman
Public Hygiene Council
Forum: Keeping public toilets clean a collective responsibility
DEC 13, 2023
We refer to Mr Tay Boon Suat’s letter on how dirty coffee shop toilets are an issue that needs to be addressed (Users must help keep coffee shop toilets clean, Dec 2).
Public toilets at food establishments are an essential amenity, especially to the stallholders, food handlers and cleaners who work there.
Dirty and wet toilets are prone to breeding germs and viruses. It is thus important that the toilets in food establishments are kept hygienically clean.
We need to recognise that keeping public toilets clean is a joint responsibility.
Everyone, including the premises’ operators and the public, has a role to play.
Clean public toilets can be possible only if everyone does their part to keep them clean.
It has been more than a year since the Public Hygiene Council started the Neighbourhood Toilets Community Group initiative to drive home the message of collective responsibility in keeping public toilets clean.
While the initiative started only as a pilot scheme, the participating coffee shop operators and community volunteers observed that toilet cleanliness at their participating premises has improved significantly since the pilot.
More needs to be done, and the first thing to do is to start recognising that we cannot hope for a clean Singapore if the toilets are dirty.
We always think it is someone else’s job to keep public toilets clean.
This is a total misconception; we need to be more civic-minded and adopt a culture of change in picking up litter, as well as in keeping public toilets clean, just like we do in our home.
Andrew Khng
Chairman
Public Hygiene Council
Keep toilets clean by design
PUBLISHED DEC 22, 2023When it comes to preserving the cleanliness of public toilets (Keeping public toilets clean a collective responsibility, Dec 13), it is often their design and serviceability that hamper civic-mindedness.
Faulty taps, broken toilet flushes, lack of toilet paper and poor ventilation are some of the common issues found in toilets located at places such as older coffee shops.
They indirectly promote poor user behaviour. If toilets are already wet and dirty, there is little users can do to remedy the situation, and little incentive for them to not compound the problem.
Start with the fundamentals of good design, such as graded floors to drain water, and proper ventilation with good lighting. If the environments are pleasant, users’ behaviour will follow.
Paul Chan Poh Hoi
Toilet cleaners aim to please, but most users' aim do not help!
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