Think Green Singapore!

Singapore is known for its Super trees. This is what people think about when Singapore is mentioned. The view from Marina Bay, the Super Trees with the "ship" on top of three skyscrapers. It is a symbol of environmental thinking, the "future" of green energy. Though I really like the trees and what they stand for, Singapore's population is not as environmental as one would think.

Despite the very clean streets, the forbidden food and drinks in subways, there are many things Singapore fail at accomplishing. Having lived here for one and a half year now I am concerned about their consumption of foam and plastic.

Buying food in grocery stores is expensive. Lunch and dinner are mostly bought at hawker centres and food courts. "Take away" is common and the food is packaged in styrofoam containers. These containers are put into plastic bags and taken home. This is common, this we do, but I can not help but think Singapore can do better! There are so many styrofoam containers distributed every day, it can not be good for the environment.

Instead I was thinking about metal or hard plastic containers. Same size as the standard foam container, but reusable and light-weight. Take them with you to the stalls and ask them to fill them instead. We need to stop wasting our materials and reuse what we can. I wish there was a stall in every food court, in every hawker centre, that sold these made-up metal containers. They should come with a small bag so the consumer do not need a plastic bag every time. It would be so much better! I wish for this to happen.

These already exist on a smaller scale, and it's not entirely unusual to see someone pick up a meal in a metal container of their own, but I would like it to be more actively encouraged. 

Speaking of plastic bags. If you decide to buy food in grocery stores anyway, there will be no shortage of plastic bags there. Every item is packed in a double bag, as if one bag would be too weak to carry anything. Apart from that the cashier is packing the items in more bags than needed. They place vegetables in one bag and potatoes in another, without exception, even if there is only two packages of tomatoes. There are so many plastic bags handed out is crazy. ColdStorage do offer tote-bags, but the cashiers do not draw attention to them or even ask if the costumer would like to buy a pair.

It did not take long until we started bringing a backpack and two tote-bags ourselves. We seldom get any plastic bags with us home. It is an easy solution and I wish more did the same. I regret to inform that we have not found a solution to the take away problem, but at least we found a way to be more environmentally friendly.

Interesting enough, when mentioning this to Singaporean they seem lost. They do not understand what I am talking about. Why would I not need a bag? Why is that bad? People in their stalls need to know better, should be properly informed and try to better this world. I met an English-man in a store once. I was standing behind him in queue and he held up the line, moving all his groceries to tote-bags instead of the large amount of plastic bag the cashier had placed everything in. While doing so he ranted, not angrily, about this issue to the man behind the counter. He did not get it, I could see he was clueless.

As the Englishman turned around to apologise for keeping me waiting, he noticed I only had juice in my hand. Without thinking twice he said "you do not need a bag". I agreed and said I was not going to take one. He continued talking about Singaporeans not knowing this, not understanding the issue with too many plastic bags. I could not agree more. He opened my eyes to it, and he is the reason I am writing about this right now.

We need to start saving the planet. Use tote-bags, backpacks, reusable containers, anything you can think of. If Singapore going to be an environmentally friendly symbol, then the people need to get behind that statement as well!