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[h=2]PM Lee: Put social pressure on litterbugs[/h]
November 12th, 2012 |
Author: Editorial
PM Lee adding the finishing touches to artwork on a trash bin at the launch of Our Clean And Green Home campaign. (ST Photo).
Speaking at the launch of the Clean and Green Campaign at Ang Mo Kio constituency on Sunday morning (11 Nov), PM Lee said putting social pressure on litterbugs is one way to deal with the problem of littering.
He said it is not easy to nab people who litter and he hopes the public will pitch in to help.
PM Lee elaborated, “Members of the public will look at you and you will know that you have done something which is no good and that’s how I think the Japanese do it, the Koreans do it.”
“It’s most impressive when you go and see their cities how they have kept it clean. They don’t have as many cleaners or foreign workers as we have.”
“So, really it’s something which we have got to get into our kids and into ourselves, whether you are at home whether you are overseas. This is the correct behaviour not to be anti social.”
He said Singapore’s anti-littering campaign has been around for a long time. Yet he has noticed the standard of cleanliness going down. “Maybe the city is more crowded now that there are more people but it’s also because I think over the years people are a bit blase about it,” he said.
“So if you look at the pictures before and after which we showed how our own precincts before the cleaners have cleaned it and after the cleaners have cleaned it, a lot of stuff and a lot of it have been thrown from higher storeys. People, instead of just using the dustbin, they use the window as dustbin and I think that’s no good.”
Mr Lee though did not rule out the possibility of reinforcing the penalties for littering.
However, if one is to look at the NEA statistics, one can see that the number of enforcement tickets issued by NEA increased tremendously from 2005 to 2009. This corresponds to the time when the floodgates were opened to foreigners in 2006 after the general elections:
(Source: NEA)
With a record number of tickets being issued for littering in 2009, alarm bells were ringing at NEA. In 2009, three sociologists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and a World Health Organization (WHO) consultant were roped in to conduct a more in-depth study of this issue.
The consultants came back with a report recommending an increase in visible enforcement and refuse bins. NEA’s anti-littering campaign was also reviewed and found to be lacking specific messages to different target groups such as youths and smokers. The punitive measure against littering was also under-emphasised.
Armed with feedback from the consultants, NEA refreshed its campaign in June 2010. It improved the litter-bin infrastructure, increased the frequency and visibility of uniformed enforcers and came up with more targeted public outreach and education efforts.
After the revamp, the number of litterbugs caught dropped from 41,392 in 2009 to 23,898 in 2010. By 2011, it had dipped further to 11,131. NEA attributed the success to the new anti-littering campaign in June 2010 and the deterrent effects of uniformed enforcement, which was carried out daily in 2011.
.
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Speaking at the launch of the Clean and Green Campaign at Ang Mo Kio constituency on Sunday morning (11 Nov), PM Lee said putting social pressure on litterbugs is one way to deal with the problem of littering.
He said it is not easy to nab people who litter and he hopes the public will pitch in to help.
PM Lee elaborated, “Members of the public will look at you and you will know that you have done something which is no good and that’s how I think the Japanese do it, the Koreans do it.”
“It’s most impressive when you go and see their cities how they have kept it clean. They don’t have as many cleaners or foreign workers as we have.”
“So, really it’s something which we have got to get into our kids and into ourselves, whether you are at home whether you are overseas. This is the correct behaviour not to be anti social.”
He said Singapore’s anti-littering campaign has been around for a long time. Yet he has noticed the standard of cleanliness going down. “Maybe the city is more crowded now that there are more people but it’s also because I think over the years people are a bit blase about it,” he said.
“So if you look at the pictures before and after which we showed how our own precincts before the cleaners have cleaned it and after the cleaners have cleaned it, a lot of stuff and a lot of it have been thrown from higher storeys. People, instead of just using the dustbin, they use the window as dustbin and I think that’s no good.”
Mr Lee though did not rule out the possibility of reinforcing the penalties for littering.
However, if one is to look at the NEA statistics, one can see that the number of enforcement tickets issued by NEA increased tremendously from 2005 to 2009. This corresponds to the time when the floodgates were opened to foreigners in 2006 after the general elections:
With a record number of tickets being issued for littering in 2009, alarm bells were ringing at NEA. In 2009, three sociologists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) and a World Health Organization (WHO) consultant were roped in to conduct a more in-depth study of this issue.
The consultants came back with a report recommending an increase in visible enforcement and refuse bins. NEA’s anti-littering campaign was also reviewed and found to be lacking specific messages to different target groups such as youths and smokers. The punitive measure against littering was also under-emphasised.
Armed with feedback from the consultants, NEA refreshed its campaign in June 2010. It improved the litter-bin infrastructure, increased the frequency and visibility of uniformed enforcers and came up with more targeted public outreach and education efforts.
After the revamp, the number of litterbugs caught dropped from 41,392 in 2009 to 23,898 in 2010. By 2011, it had dipped further to 11,131. NEA attributed the success to the new anti-littering campaign in June 2010 and the deterrent effects of uniformed enforcement, which was carried out daily in 2011.
.
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