SINGAPORE - To ensure that Singapore maintains high levels of cleanliness for a clean, green and resilient future, 2024 has been designated the year of public hygiene, with a suite of measures being implemented – from possibly publicising photos of litterbugs to improving the state of public toilets.

Speaking at her ministry’s budget debate on March 4, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu said: “Sustaining high levels of public hygiene requires active participation of all of us. The Government, businesses, communities and individuals must all work together to contribute to a clean environment, safe food, clean air and clean water.”

The environmental industry will be supported with additional capacity building and technology adoption to help strengthen enforcement efforts, said Ms Fu.

For example, to manage littering, the National Environment Agency (NEA) will increase the frequency and scale of anti-littering enforcement blitzes – with plans to conduct around five times as many exercises compared with 2023, said Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and the Environment Baey Yam Keng.

Uniformed officers will patrol these hot spots and put up signs on enforcement action taken, while non-uniformed officers will catch litterbugs. Recalcitrant littering offenders will carry out corrective work orders by picking up litter at high footfall areas, including transport nodes and town centres such as Causeway Point, and city locations like Somerset.

NEA will also quadruple the deployment of closed-circuit TV cameras at littering hot spots to help enable investigations into public hygiene offences and deter other potential offenders.

If someone is caught on camera but cannot be identified, NEA will work with community stakeholders to identify them, said Mr Baey. “If there are still no leads, NEA will explore putting up images of these offenders at the places where they littered to seek the wider community’s assistance in identifying them,” he added.

These images may be displayed on notice boards and digital screens at common areas. “We hope that this will invoke collective community ownership to keep the common spaces clean, and also deter potential litterbugs,” he added.

While the Government has stepped up enforcement efforts on unhygienic toilets, enforcement measures can only go so far, said Mr Baey.

Therefore, a Public Toilets Task Force will be convened to study and recommend solutions to improve the cleanliness of public toilets.

Here are some of the other initiatives announced on March 4.

Food 

•  Three new hawker centres will be opening in 2024 in Woodleigh, Sengkang and Punggol Coast. 

•  To help increase productivity of aquaculture farms, the Government is working to optimise the use of aquaculture spaces, encourage better farming practices, and spur innovation through research and development as part of an update to the Singapore Aquaculture Plan.

The plan was first launched in 2022, and the updated version will be launched in the second half of 2024. It will serve as a road map for aquaculture development.

For example, a tender was launched for Pulau Bukom in January 2024 to bring the first closed-containment aquaculture system into the Southern Waters. These types of farming systems are more resilient against environment risks, and generally pollute the surrounding waters less as they do not release waste in the sea.

Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment Koh Poh Koon noted that optimising the use of limited sea spaces for aquaculture will require the Government to balance competing priorities including maritime activities and biodiversity. Engagements are ongoing with various groups to help guide the “development of productive and sustainable aquaculture for Singapore”, he added.

Climate 

•  To ensure that coastal protection plans can be implemented along more than 300km of Singapore’s coastline, the Government will be enacting coastal protection legislation, said Dr Koh.

This will essentially help to safeguard land for coastal protection measures and future upgrades to account for uncertainties in climate projections. According to the third national climate change study, or V3, mean sea levels are projected to rise to up to 1.15m by 2100, and by up to around 2m by 2150.

The law will also regulate and take action against activities that could pose a risk to coastal protection measures and ensure that national water agency PUB’s coastal protection standards are met.

Managing resources 

•  To spur sustainability efforts from the top down, the Government has imposed sustainability requirements on the goods and services that it purchases, to encourage companies that bid for tenders to green their processes and products. 

These criteria have been piloted for five construction tenders and one ICT (information and communications technology) bulk tender since the requirements were announced in 2023, said Dr Amy Khor, who is Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment. Sustainability criteria accounted for up to 5 per cent of the tender evaluation points.

For instance, companies bidding for construction tenders were assessed on factors such as whether they adopted decarbonisation technologies, whether they incorporated low-carbon construction materials, and whether they carried out climate-related disclosures (data on a company’s carbon footprint and climate-related risks). 

This initiative will be expanded to companies that tender for Mice (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) and other events organised by the public sector from the 2025 financial year. Industry consultations will be conducted before these guidelines are implemented. 

•  The Government’s second sustainability report, which will be out in 2024, will include data on waste and waste reduction efforts, and it is still studying the appropriate approach to include Scope 3 emissions, which refer to indirect greenhouse gas emissions.

•  To help businesses and households make more informed decisions on energy-efficient equipment, labels and standards will be implemented for household water heaters and commercial storage refrigerators from April 1, 2025. Currently, these labels are applied to air-conditioners and refrigerators, and have resulted in significant energy and cost savings.

Water heaters are the third-highest energy consuming household appliance, and commercial storage refrigerators can account for about one-third of hawkers’ electricity usage, said Dr Khor.

•  To help businesses better manage their waste, a new Zero Waste Manager Course has been launched to train participants to implement 3R (reduce, reuse and recycle) efforts and integrate these into their companies’ organisational culture. The course can help some 750 companies to fulfil their regulatory requirements under the mandatory waste reporting scheme, which requires companies to submit their waste reduction plans and their waste and recycling data.

Editor’s note: This story has been edited for accuracy.