Document

Where does the solid waste Singapore generated go to?

Most of Singapore’s trash is incinerated Singapore disposes of much of its waste through waste-to-energy initiatives especially incineration. With a whopping 7.23 million tonnes of solid waste generated, it is almost equivalent to more than 3200 Olympic-sized pools!

How waste is processed?

Waste that is thrown down the rubbish chute is collected by waste collectors and transported to four waste-to-energy plants – Tuas, Senoko, Tuas South and Keppel Seghers Tuas.

The refuse trucks tip their waste load into a bunker where crane operators mix the waste to ensure the composition is homogenous, before feeding the waste into the incinerators. The incineration process reduces the volume of waste by up to 90%. The heat produced is harnessed to produce electricity, which is fed into the national grid.

The flue gas produced during the incineration process is filtered to remove particulates, harmful acidic gases, dioxins and furans, before it is released into the environment through chimneys.

Ferrous metal and non-ferrous metal as small as 2mm, like copper and aluminium are recovered from incinerated bottom ash at the metal recovery facility using magnetic and eddy current separators.

The remaining ash and non-incinerable waste are transported to Tuas Marine Transfer Station.

A tugboat nudges a barge which takes the waste on a 33.3km journey to the Transfer Building at Semakau Landfill.

Large excavators with specially designed grabs are used to unload the waste from the barge onto 35-tonne dump trucks.

The dump trucks take the incineration ash to the Floating Platform, where it is discharged into the Phase II cell to make uneven seabed shallow and level – a condition that will allow conventional landfilling using bulldozers, excavators and compactors to take place at a later stage of landfilling.

Waste-to-energy initiatives are not sustainable in the long run

Encouraged by the false promise that such initiatives generate green electricity, people are less compelled to conserve energy when they in fact, Waste-to-energy only accounts for 3% of Singapore's electricity needs.

Likewise, they provide no impetus to reduce waste volumes or advocate responsible recycling. Singapore has extremely low recycling rates and creates massive waste volumes for such a small city-state.

Unnecessary demand for virgin materials, resulting in lost and wasted resources.

They could smother innovation in waste management, including upcycling waste into other, higher-value products besides electricity, or hinder the transition to more renewable energy sources.

Incineration typically leads to increased carbon emissions and air pollution, and could potentially pose a health hazard, although experts from the NEA claims that Singapore's waste-to-energy technology is environmentally and health-friendly

According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), incineration reduces waste by up to 90%, saving landfill space, and the heat recovered produces steam used to generate electricity. But what is the actual implications of such waste-to-energy initiatives?

Recycling rates are extremely low, and much of it is exported

Despite awareness-raising campaigns to encourage a 3R (reduce, reuse and recycle) mindset, and designating 2019 as a ‘Year towards zero waste , the domestic recycling rate decreased from 22% in 2018 to 17% in 2019, while the non-domestic recycling rate decreased from 75% in 2018 to 73% in 2019– only 4% of plastic and 18% of food is recycled in the city-state.

Most of Singapore's recycling is exported abroad for processing, including Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea or Thailand. However, recent government decisions by countries like China or Indonesia to cut their imported waste means that an increasing amount of Singapore s recyclable trash ends up being incinerated. According to many industry experts, running a domestic recycling operation in Singapore is not financially feasible, and there is little transparency on what happens with the exported recyclables.

40% of trash placed into recycling bins are contaminated, and thus incinerated

There is also limited awareness and education on the dos and don'ts of recycling, and many are not conscious that a recyclable item has to be washed or rinsed to avoid liquid or food contamination.

According to a 2018 study by the Singapore Environment Council (SEC), 70% of respondents did not fully know which items were considered recyclable.

Under Singapore s National Recycling Programme, the government provides commingled recycling bins to all residential estates where glass, plastic, paper and metal are collected together, which further increases the risk of contamination if consumers do not recycle correctly.

Singapore's one and only landfill is projected to reach capacity by 2035

Incinerated ash and non-incinerable waste are deposited to Semakau Landfill the city-state s sole landfill which is projected to run out of space by 2035, or even earlier given the spike in waste generation amid the Covid-19 pandemic has outstripped the current rate of recycling.

Since, 34% of our recyclables are exported, we are susceptible to the status of the external market and policy of other countries towards recyclables would have a significant impact on our recycling rate. Hence, we cannot be reliant on prevailing waste management strategies.

This further increases the urgency to improve sustainable waste management and resource recovery at the regulatory and industrial, as well as the consumer and household levels.