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Recycling needs tough love and a cultural shift
The Straits Times
|August 29, 2025
I agree with Tan Dawn Wei's commentary "Singapore's dirty little sense of entitlement" (Aug 26). The overflowing recycling bins stuffed with trash are not just eyesores — they reveal a deeper problem: We treat recycling as a token gesture rather than a shared responsibility.
Japan and South Korea show what serious recycling looks like. In Japan, residents separate waste into multiple streams — burnable, non-burnable, plastic, glass, metals — often with detailed schedules. In South Korea, households even pay by the bag for general waste, making it costly to throw things away carelessly.
These systems succeed not only because of strict rules and fines, but also because of years of education that instilled recycling as a civic duty.
This story is from the August 29, 2025 edition of The Straits Times.
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