The people who litter are the same ones who littered before the trash cans were removed. The only difference is that some of them were willing to walk a couple of steps to throw things away. We need to teach common decency, adults need to set better examples, and the cops walking the street need to start ticketing people for littering - whether it's a fast food bag or a cigarette butt.
> The people who litter are the same ones who littered before the trash cans were removed. The only difference is that some of them were willing to walk a couple of steps to throw things away. So, they're not the same, then? Those willing to walk a couple of steps to throw things away weren't littering before.
They were littering before, but not as frequently, as sometimes there was a bin nearby.
'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…
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.
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.
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
Well, they drink their own piss too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEWater
Don’t most places with wastewater treatment drink their own piss?
> 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. To me it sounds like the worst kind of dystopia possible. The wrong mix of medieval and futuristic: you get flogged or killed for silly things, the economy is effectively feudal, and if you are ever somewhat happy about something (wow! no mosqui…
"Disneyland with the death penalty" is how William Burroughs phrased it
Wow, that is a very powerful use of language here.
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 cle…
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 mu…
The separate disposable chopsticks used to be rinsed and then repacked and reused.
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...
That with chewing gum bans sums up what we're known for mostly!
> Singapore is ruthlessly capitalist, and can be a terrible place to be if you're poor or a foreign worker. Which Asian countries do you think have it better, in this respect, than Singapore?
Japan and Taiwan come to mind. What's kind of unique about Singapore in Asia is that it's very wealthy, yet its social safety net and worker protections are quite lacking.
lacking how? We do have supporting schemes for the lower income brackets
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 accus…
heh three years ago all metal trash bins in Shenzhen China were changed to plastic ones, for similar reasons i suppose. It's ironic to see the change in Europe, from cheap plastic bins to fancy stainless ones in city centers, back to plastic ones.
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 cle…
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 mu…
This! Many Shenzhen China street bbq 'hawkers?' will offer you a plate that is covered with disposable plastic bag, so they don't need to clean the plates (cost more than bag?), only throw away the bag (throwing meaning recycling by someone else). Its purely about making a living....NOW...all down to the smallest bit of margin and plastic it seems. It also seems plastic in Asia is a lot more recyclable than in Europe, where it's seen as a threat. In China you put your banana peel in the 'non recyclable' bin and your plastic in the 'recyclable' bin... This sorta hints at the human cost behind recycling this stuff it seems...beyond being someones retirement fund, can we really get rid of this plastic? What are the costs of this? Are there more energy efficient alternatives?
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 mu…
This! Many Shenzhen China street bbq 'hawkers?' will offer you a plate that is covered with disposable plastic bag, so they don't need to clean the plates (cost more than bag?), only throw away the bag (throwing meaning recycling by someone else). Its purely about making a living....NOW...all down to the smallest bit of margin and plastic it seems. It also seems plastic in Asia is a lot more recyclable than in Europe…
scanning over the article > "clean" in the headline and "green" first paragraph leaves me confused, also the two following paragraphs are titled "clean and green" and then talks about fines...followed by "a 'fine' city" (pun intended?). So in what way does punishment affects 'green' solutions? What solutions are you looking for? In what way would incentives work? 'Mentality change' is also an interesting one...Too many questions