With all the campaign efforts throughout the years, the environmental issue is still not tackled, at least not in Singapore. Mediacorp has been launching a ‘Saving Gaia’ campaign which aims to “educate and inform about environmental issues” for over a decade.
Interestingly I have always listened to their theme song ‘Save my World’ every year whenever the commercial is playing on the TV. Which I would like to believe many would have heard of that song. But I am always inquisitive about the fact that why nobody around me is recycling or cutting down on the usage of plastic bags.
It then reminded me that in 2010, the Singapore Environment Council released a campaign called the “Bring Your Own Bag” day on every first Wednesday of the month to promote the use of reusable bags instead of plastic bags. The idea worked for a while, everyone is talking about the campaign and almost everyone in the supermarket has their own reusable bag.
So I did some research to try and understand why are we not recycling enough. The Zero Waste SG is a non-profit and non-government organisation who promotes the minimisation of waste. Zero Waste reposted a portion of an article from Channel News Asia, in which I tried to click on it and it was removed. And few articles regarding the plastic bag issue on Channel News Asia was removed, seems a bit dodgy for them to just remove the article. But the first two paragraph is attached below.
The issue with this campaign is that it is simply not doing enough. Countries like Hong Kong and Korea charges 10 cents or more for every plastic bag used. Even Miniso, a Japanese retailer store, encourages their customer to save plastic bags and charges 10 cents for every bag used.
The only reason for the government not implementing the plastic bag surcharge is because majority of the Singaporeans would be upset about it. Citizens are used to getting free plastic bags all their lives. What's more with the rising cost of living, Singaporeans still needs to pay an increase in numerous taxes such as carbon, goods and services and digital imported services.
With the additional implementing of surcharge for plastic bags, it would cause the citizens to be more upset with our government. But the environment issue is still there and it should not be avoided.
I believe it would be more effective if people were to be charged an extra fee rather than getting incentives or rebates off their bill. Companies have to be more proactive in imposing a fee for every plastic bag used, especially retailers like the supermarkets in which people buy items in bulk.
It was mentioned in Channel News Asia that “People see the usage of plastic bag as a right, not a privilege.” It was sad to see that people feel like plastic bags is an entitlement and companies are afraid that by implementing the charges, they will lose their customers to other competitors company who still gives out plastic bags.
Perhaps all of the supermarkets in Singapore can join forces together and implement the charges at the same time so that none of them will be losing out. Hopefully the ‘Bring your own bag’ campaign will bring a bigger comeback plan and become a permanent solution to the problem.
It is a big change but change got to happen someday. It would need to have a collaborative effort from everyone; consumers, businesses and government all plays a part to contribute to a more environmental-friendly society. But there is one question, is Singapore ready for it?
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