
The cost of keeping Singapore squeaky clean - happy-go-lucky
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20181025-the-cost-of-keeping-singapore-squeaky-clean
======
Sureai
I am right now in Singapore for a visit and personally I don't have the
feeling of a very clean city. There are some things that drive me crazy as a
european. I went to a hawker with some Singaporeans and we got new disposable
chopsticks for every dish. Wich means I ended up with three pairs of
chopsticks. All plates were disposable. Either of plastic or styrofoam. Like
in the article we didn't clean our trays, a cleaner took them the second we
finished eating. I asked the Singaporeans how they feel about all the plastic
and they just replied that's just how it is. Especially, that you get a
plastic bag for every two items in the supermarket drives me nuts. Even when I
am holding a backpack directly in front of the cashier he starts packing the
items faster in a plastic bag than I can say anything. They even have watered
sponges for their finger tips so they can be quicker with the plastic bags.

Needless to say, that all the trash ends up somewhere. Maybe not so much in
percentage, but you will definitely find litter every few meters. The
difference to my hometown in Germany is, that the litter there stays for years
but also not so much new litter per day is produced. Maybe the Singaporeans
should place more public trash bins or get some moop bags.

~~~
mediumdeviation
Regarding disposable plates and utensils, I actually don't see much of them
unless you ask for takeout. I suspect in the area you're in the cost of dish
washing is more expensive than the cost of plates and refuse collection. A tax
on disposables would be great.

Singapore is actually getting better on reducing disposables, though slower
than I would like. Cashiers don't double bag items anymore, and try to pack as
much into one as possible. Paper takeout boxes and bags have replaced
styrofoam and plastic in many places, and it's currently trendy to not offer
plastic straws for drinks.

Another reason for disposable chopsticks, (though this applies more in China,
Taiwan and Malaysia) is that the customers may not trust the hygiene of the
place they're eating in. Disposable chopsticks are cut with the centers intact
so it's impossible to put them back together and resell them.

~~~
Sureai
I had one metallic straw in a fancy cocktail bar. The rest were plastic. Not
to say, that I get a plastic cup full of ice with a plastic straw when I order
a green tea, which comes in a can and is already ice cold. For the litter I
see the most: part of plastic bags and Dasani water bottles. I hope the change
in trash management, recycling and maybe trash separation does not only start
with the rich people here, but with everyone.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Metallic straw? Like, reusable? Fairly sure that wouldn't fly anywhere else, I
mean, even plastic straws are individually packaged right now due to hygiene
considerations.

Disposable plastic > poorly cleaned reusables.

~~~
CaptainZapp
I ate street food, while sitting on rickety plastic chairs on small metal
tables, covered in noise and moped fumes in Penang, Bangkok and Ha Noi among
other places.

I ate a lot of it and never, ever got sick.

Here's my golden rule from which I _never_ deviate:

    
    
      Make sure that you see how they cook the food on premises 
      It needs to be well visited, preferably by locals
    

As I said I never got sick (or even felt slight discomfort) and I had a number
of memorable meals under such conditions.

Would a western health inspector tolerate the setup? Hell; no!

But, so what?

Sure, you can stick to the hotel restaurant of The Intercontinental in
Bangkok, but you'll be hardly any safer than eating on a wobbly table in some
small soi in the area.

But man, will you be missing out...

------
gumby
I am always shocked when I go to Singapore because when I was a child in the
1960s Singapore was no different from any other southeast asian city: muddy
river banks, discarded rubbish everywhere, boats unloaded by hand, and street
hawkers (with amazing food) cooking food on gas rings from their bikes.

Love them or hate them, but you have to admit LKW and the PAP just got to work
and transformed the place. But somehow managed to keep the good food (though
the food in Ipoh remains the best).

------
Animats
Plus really strong drug laws.

Six executions so far this year. Most recent: October 26, 2018.[1]

[1] [https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2018/10/425285/prabus-
fin...](https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2018/10/425285/prabus-final-
message-do-not-be-involved-drugs)

~~~
otterley
They’re not kidding. The visitor entry card everyone receives upon arrival to
Singapore says “DEATH TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS” in hard-to-miss block print.

------
raincom
The area of Singapore is 278 sq miles, approximately the size of 17 miles
square. Whatever policies that work in such small high density places won't
work in larger countries. However, one can try to decentralize as much as
possible; such decentralization may not work in large countries either.

~~~
jernfrost
Both Japan and Switzerland are know to be very clean and much larger.

But they seem to approach it very differently.

I seem to remember Spain being quite clean too. People mopped the pavements in
one of the towns I visited every morning.

~~~
JoachimS
Was i sounthern Switzerland (Lugano) this spring and was chocked at the
difference in cleanliness between Switzerland and Italy. Crossing the border
by car, it was like somebody had turn a knob and enabled litter in the
background graphics when entering Italy. It was that surreal a difference.

------
Reason077
In London, the “war on litter bins” (removal of litter bins from train
stations and central areas, supposedly to prevent them being misused by
terrorists) has created a culture of simply leaving litter on the floor or in
the street because there are no bins to put it in.

Perhaps that’s ok in busy central locations where a street cleaner will be
along shortly to pick it up, but the problem is that people are now accustomed
to dropping litter and do the same in suburbs, parks, and countryside where it
just accumulates.

How do we solve it? We need to teach environmental education in schools and
try to stop littering habits before they form.

But also, I think a great application for robotics technology will be litter
picking, street-cleaning robots!

~~~
EmbarrassedFuel
The bin removal was actually prompted by a period when the IRA would put bombs
into bins in train stations etc., see eg

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrington_bomb_attacks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrington_bomb_attacks)

So not a completely idiotic policy.

~~~
Reason077
For a while there was a solution involving “hoop” bins with clear plastic bags
so you could see what was inside them.

But recent terror attacks (which used knives and vehicles, not bins) prompted
their removal again.

~~~
slazaro
Wait, that doesn't make any sense. If the see-through bins solved a problem,
why would they be removed when a different problem appears? They're
independent problems, removing the bins when they're not involved in the new
kind of attacks seems just random.

~~~
dev_north_east
Yep, pretty much. I live not-in-London and during one of the heightened
periods of security last year (armed police everywhere) all clear bag bins
were removed from the metro and bus stations. This of course led to littering.
It didn't make any sense.

------
Paraesthetic
One thing that always impressed me about Singapore was that they incinerated
all their garbage, then they collected the emissions from that furnace to
power the city, and used the by products again. Brilliant

~~~
coldtea
Well, they drink their own piss too.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEWater](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEWater)

~~~
stephengillie
Just like astronauts.

~~~
coldtea
Or perverts!

------
jernfrost
Is not Japan similarly clean and they do it without lots of fines and cheap
Labour. They do it through the upbringing and linking cleanliness to morality.

I have not been either place but maybe somebody who have can compare to
cleanliness of both places?

~~~
coldtea
Yeah. If anything, Japan is even cleaner.

Singapore is very clean in major areas (downtown, main streets, neighborhoods,
etc) but not different than e.g. London in poorer ones.

------
maxxxxx
Singapore is an interesting case study how a well-run government that
restricts a lot of freedoms can work remarkably well. I wonder if this model
is sustainable long term.

~~~
latch
I lived in Singapore for a couple years and I can say that, at least as an
expat, you hardly feel restrictions. Of the Singaporeans I know, locals from
young to old, they all love it.

Like all countries, it has its issues, but consider:

\- Freedom of religion particularly stands out

\- It has great and affordable health care

\- It's safe

\- Very easy to do business

I could list more. Maybe freedom means something different to you than to me.
Like I said, there's definitely room for improvement, but I think they're
doing way more right than wrong.

~~~
jpatokal
I suspect your sample size was heavily biased to your own social class.
Singapore is ruthlessly capitalist, and can be a terrible place to be if
you're poor or a foreign worker.

One _Straits Times_ (local Pravda) story I recall was about one of those old
ladies who cleans up in hawker centres, earning on the order of S$100/month.
This is way below a living wage, even in Singapore, and there's no state
pension in Singapore either, so this was the sum total of her income. Because
she couldn't afford an apartment, she slept (illegally) on the "void deck"
(ground floor, exposed to elements) of an HDB housing block.

None of this was news, mind you -- the news was the fact that somebody stole
her life savings of $50 from a cookie jar, and _this_ is not permissible in
squeaky-clean Singapore.

Many maids are also kept in modern-day slavery, working 365/24/7 and literally
locked into the apartment so they don't run off and get pregnant, in which
case the maid is forcibly repatriated and the owner is fined.

More eye-opening reading here: [http://twc2.org.sg/](http://twc2.org.sg/)

~~~
philliphaydon
> Many maids are also kept in modern-day slavery, working 365/24/7

In order to get a maid in Singapore you have to pass a test. They are also
paid ~500-700/m which is a lot more than they earn in their own countries. For
example the minimum monthly income in Cambodia is roughly ~120$. So they earn
a lot more in Singapore. Also maids must be given 1 day off per week.

Now every single person I know who has a maid treats them well, a co-worker of
mine who is Indian paid for her maid to go back to India for 2 weeks while she
went on holiday. This sort of thing is not uncommon.

Now that doesn't mean there are not bad apples in Singapore, I've read stories
of maids who have been locked up and not paid, or forced to clean the outside
of windows on the 20th story of an apartment block. But if caught, those
families get in a lot of trouble. In asia, everything is about face, that
doesn't go for just the families, in singapore it's the country too. So they
put a lot of effort into ensuring people are safe and protected so it never
gets a bad reputation.

> earning on the order of S$100/month

This is rubbish. The entry level for a cleaner is $1000/m, not $100, the
salary goes up if you're skilled in operating cleaning machines and such, not
just picking up trash. Also the government subsidizes salaries of workers over
the age of retirement.

Singapore doesn't have handouts. You don't get handed money because you're old
or unemployed. What they do is if you as a company hire someone over a certain
age, the government will pay a portion of the salary. This is why Singapore
has many workers who are old, and why tax in Singapore is so low.

Housing is also subsidized if you're a low income earner, or little to no
family support. You still need to pay rent, but its a fraction of what non-
subsidized renters pay.

~~~
jpatokal
You're confusing what _ought_ to be with what _is_. Yes, maids are _supposed_
to be given one day off a week on paper, but who enforces that? Maids and
other foreign workers are also not supposed to pay huge sums to agents to
score jobs in Singapore, but they do, often ending up in debt, with loan
sharks threatening their families if they don't complete their terms.

It's not a question of "bad apples", but the system being stacked so heavily
in the employers' favor that it effectively tolerates if not outright
encourages abuse. The kind of thing that ends up in the courts and newspapers
is only the tip of the iceberg:
[https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-see-more-
cases...](https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-see-more-cases-of-
maids-being-abused)

Note how frequently the _employers_ threaten their victims with repatriation
or the police!

Re: homeless cleaner lady, the story in question was ~10 years ago, but my
understanding is that it was not a formal job, but some sort of off the
books/cash in hand arrangement -- hence the $100 figure, which was indeed
absurdly low even at the time. And not everybody can afford even subsidized
housing:

[https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/singapore-
ho...](https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/singapore-homeless-
stereotypes-busted-destitute-9289070)

~~~
philliphaydon
> You're confusing what ought to be with what is. Yes, maids are supposed to
> be given one day off a week on paper, but who enforces that?

You been to lucky plaza on a Sunday? Chaos. Mustafa? Botanic Guardens? Gardens
by the Bay?

These places are littered with maids every weekend. Some maids choose not to
go out. 2 friends of mine have maids, and both their maids go out for 1 hour
on Sunday to send money back, then come home, because they don't want to waste
money.

The vast majority of maids live happily.

This is another case of "the minority ruin it for the majority". A few Muslim
extremists have made a lot of the world think majority of Muslim people are
bad people, when the majority are really awesome.

So yes it is a question about a few bad apples.

~~~
jpatokal
Of course there are people in Lucky Plaza and Mustafa on Sundays: there are on
the order of 250,000 maids in Singapore, and around 1.6 million foreign
workers total.

My argument is not that all Singaporeans are monsters, or that all foreign
workers are oppressed, but that simply that the system as it is today has very
few protections against the abuse of its most vulnerable, and the OP's claim
that "all Singaporeans love it" is pretty darn starry-eyed.

------
p1mrx
I once wandered around Singapore for a few days, and their infrastructure is
mostly great, except that I never encountered a single drinking fountain. Not
in the airport, train stations, shopping centers, food courts, public
buildings...

Does everyone buy/carry water every day, or how do they survive?

~~~
philliphaydon
Singapore is (I think) the only country in Asia that you can drink water from
a tap. But even so, people here still boil water before drinking it.

So outside people will buy water even if a fountain was available.

~~~
latch
Japan and South Korea tap water is safe...and I think it's commonly consumed
in Japan. Koreans approach it like Singaporeans..some do, some boil.

~~~
philliphaydon
I just googled and see Japan tape water is safe to drink. I've been by hotels
in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Mt Fuji all told me not to drink the tap water. Hence I
thought it wasn't drinkable. Good to know it is!

I've never been to South Korea, yet.

~~~
coldtea
> _I 've been by hotels in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Mt Fuji all told me not to drink
> the tap water._

And perhaps suggested you buy some bottled instead?

~~~
philliphaydon
Bottled water is free in hotels in Japan, so no...

------
scythe
>The aim wasn’t just to make the city more pleasant. A cleaner city, Lee Kuan
Yew reasoned, would create a stronger economy.

>“These standards will keep morale high, sickness rate low, and so create the
necessary social conditions for higher economic growth in industry and in
tourism. [...]"

It's interesting that Singapore has, with this policy, become one of the very
few unambiguously successful, unambiguously tropical countries. HK/Macao
qualify, but historically had more support from their suzerains. Otherwise
you've got, like, maybe Mauritius and Barbados. The desert oil nations would
qualify, but their dryness prevents disease.

------
cyberferret
I love Singapore, and visit there often. The cleanliness is definitely one of
the things that brings me back, even though I love travelling through most SE
Asian countries (I was born in Malaysia).

However, I recall about 20 or 30 years ago, the cleanliness was much better,
probably while Lee Kwan Yew was still in charge. I would see businessmen in
suits stop and pick up cigarette butts in the street and bin them.

But in more recent visits, I notice locals walking past litter and butts more
casually. It is still better than most cities, but I think the fastidiousness
has worn off a little with the latest generation?

------
exabrial
What I found really interesting when I there earlier this year was that the
ethnic Chinese complained quite a bit about the strict laws, but the ethnic
British or Malaysian didn't seem to be bothered by the plethora of laws, the
didn't really seem to interfere with their daily life

~~~
coldtea
Well, if you're a British executive or similar well-off job, it's not like
laws restrict your daily life. Between your company, the expensive hangouts,
the mall shopping, and the country club, you come so little in contact with
them, you might as well live in London or New York.

If you're one of the statistically poorer ethnic Chinese or Malay, hustling to
make a living, working in hawker centers, peddling some ware, running some
small shop, trying to make a living, etc, you're more likely to brush with
various laws and restrictions.

Some cultures also dislike restrictions more, and paradoxically that's truer
for Chinese culture I find, than for British. Chinese culture might be ok with
strong government and even straight-out dictatorship, but they are more laid-
back, cheaty, work-aroundy etc in their day to day life (consider London vs
Beijing driving for a crude example, or queue lines). I guess, less "by the
book" is the term I was looking for.

(And yes, these are generalizations -- they're needed to talk about the world
in any other way than on a case by case basis)

~~~
exabrial
Well said on every point, and this has been exactly my experience traveling to
both locations (Beijing / London)

------
ggm
Moist Tropical climate + concrete == mould.

Hawker style food + stalls with no trashcan == rubbish.

I love Singapore, but like Bangkok, Taipei, Hong Kong, its a constant battle
to deal with nature, and social behaviour.

------
0max
In contrast, keeping your environment clean and respecting it is ingrained in
Japanese culture and respect for nature was born out of the Shinto faith which
believes that there are "kami" or spirits in everything from nature. Instead
of creating institutions that perform the work of cleaning, they should
instead change the culture to compel the populace to respect their environment
and to "leave no trace" instead.

------
sonnyblarney
'Messy' and 'dirty' are very different things.

Not returning your dishes is a different thing from littering.

If it's custom in a locale, it seems reasonable to leave your plates ... it's
what we do at regular restaurants.

But not throwing rubbish in the streets - this is universally a good thing.

I sometimes see people throwing water or coke bottles out of their car here in
Montreal I find it maddening that someone could be so crude.

Kids and Teachers doing a one-over, such a great idea. I believe it's probably
strongly linked to creating conscientious behaviour overall.

I also believe there are strong psychological effects (i.e. 'broken windows')
- if people see a slum, I think they're more likely to treat it as such, and
visa-versa.

~~~
Cthulhu_
I love those clips on e.g. youtube where someone picks up the trash and throws
it back in their face. Littering is illegal pretty much everywhere, but it's
hard to enforce because there's not police everywhere.

~~~
sonnyblarney
It's not lawfulness that will keep the city clean it's institutionalized
behaviour. In addition to being taught that in school ... things like
'shaming' enforce social behaviour.

~~~
sonnyblarney
It's the same thing that drives the non-usage of the 'n word' for example.
North Americans don't use the n-word because of some kind of legality, it's
socially taboo. If someone were to get out of hand with it, someone would say
something.

------
sohkamyung
One part not mentioned in the article is the cleaning up of nature areas.
There are calls for volunteers to periodically go for coastal clean-up at
nature and other less 'touristy' beach areas [1] which usually yields a lot of
rubbish, but does show that some people are enough concerns for the
environment to volunteer to do it.

[1] [http://coastalcleanup.nus.edu.sg/](http://coastalcleanup.nus.edu.sg/)

------
mark_l_watson
I worked in Singapore in 2016 for a few weeks and loved the place. Being
‘cleaned’ was only part of it: people seemed happy there, I got the impression
that people had jobs and were enjoying their lives.

After working there, I briefly tried to get a full time job there but ended up
accepting a job in the US. Singapore rocks!

------
warp_factor
went to visit Singapore for a week. Some friends told me it was one of the
best places to see in Asia.

Coming back from it, it looks to me as one of the most boring places on earth.
Everything is indeed crazy clean and it reinforce to the fact that it looks as
a place with no soul.

There is almost nothing to do beside working, going to the Casino or the mall.
People like Singapore because it is clean and everyone speaks English

------
ronilan
What you should wonder is if this model is desirable in any term.

~~~
maxxxxx
From what I have heard from people living there most people seem OK with it.

~~~
mkstowegnv
All over the world there are testosterone poisoned males engaging in as much
obnoxious behavior as they can get away with (e.g. riding motorcycles with no
mufflers). Particulary coming from the Southern US it is absolutely delightful
to be in a place where "rednecks" are completley suppressed.

~~~
justtopost
Then move? I like my motorcycle and my testosterone. Thanks for male shaming.

Edit. Thanks for the downvotes for pointing out literal bigotry. Wtf hn.

------
testcross
> The country has long had an obsession with hygiene and cleanliness.

An obsession with shiny appearances. Hygiene and cleanliness? What a joke. So
many meat shops don't store meat in a cold and clean place. Plenty of hawkers
are far from clean.

> There are 56,000 cleaners registered with the National Environment Agency.
> There are likely thousands of independent contractors who aren’t registered.
> Mostly they’re low-paid foreign workers or elderly workers.

This says everything. It's easier to keep the city "clean" when you have
slaves.

~~~
ValentineC
> _Hygiene and cleanliness? What a joke. So many meat shops don 't store meat
> in a cold and clean place._

There are legal statutes regulating this [1], and the enforcement agency
(National Environment Agency) responds to all complaints about potential
hygiene issues pretty fast.

I've reported some borderline cases where I felt that the places weren't
storing cooked food properly, and I've always gotten a response including a
statement that officers visited the place.

[1]
[https://sso.agc.gov.sg/SL/EPHA1987-RG16#pr15-](https://sso.agc.gov.sg/SL/EPHA1987-RG16#pr15-)

