Our Plastic Problem
Information gotten from interviews
Email from NEA
Groups of people that were targeted?
Say YES to Waste Less campaign is primarily "59 partners from major food and beverage establishments, malls/retail chains, e-tailers, supermarkets, hotels, schools, organisations such as Community Development Councils and non-government organisations"
Whether it was successful?
"In a years time , the partners increased from 59 to 95"
Opinions on public's actions?
"we need to change the way we live, work and play. This includes curbing excessive consumption habits in all aspects of our lives, harvesting resources from trash, consciously choosing sustainable products and services, and reusing resources for as long as possible. Everyone, including youths, like yourself, can take the lead in adopting a more sustainable lifestyle, by reducing individual packaging waste, e-waste and food waste. These are priority waste streams that Singapore generate in high quantities but have low recycling rates. To reduce packaging waste, the first step is to refuse unneccesary packaging (e.g. disposable bags) as well as to bring along a reusable bottle, bag and container as a daily habit. It is also useful to buy products with reduced packaging.."
how do I become more convincing?
Youths can influence their family and friends to adopt environmentally-friendly habits and drive change by running initiatives or supporting the initiatives of organisations (e.g. organisations by NGOs, retail shops which use less packaging, beach clean-ups). The Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, together with National Youth Council, has also been engaging youth leaders on our environmental policies and programmes through conversations and youth forums. Through their lens, we hope to better understand youth perspectives on sustainability, empower them to lead more ground-up initiatives and to build a more environmentally-conscious and gracious Singapore. We strongly encourage youths to also participate actively in such conversations and consultations.There are many ways to encourage one another to do their part in reducing their waste. Your project would be a good start to conduct research and engage your fellow peers through surveys or discussions to identify what are some of the barriers that are stopping them from adopting a zero-waste lifestyle. From the findings, you can develop materials or initiatives to change their mindsets and encourage them to adopt environmentally-friendly habits."
Email from SEC
25.92% ranked the introduction of financial penalties on plastic bags as their preferred recommendation vs (28.32%) of respondents ranked the introduction of financial penalties on plastic bags as their least preferred option.
According to a study, Consumer penalties introduced at the retail level were the most effective. Consumer behaviours were more influenced by financial penalties, i.e., through a plastic bag levy, rather than financial incentives eg discount.
Consumers typically use a supermarket plastic bag for 30 minutes, whilst a plastic straw is used for five minutes. Other types of short-lived plastics include plastic stirrers, which have a lifespan of 10 seconds.
Reverse Vending Machines costs between SGD 10,000 and SGD 100,000 but 50,000 bottles were collected within three months.
Singapore’s dependence and overuse of plastics by consumers. They attributed this trend to convenience, cheap supply of plastics, resistance to change, and resistance to taking personal responsibility. Singaporeans are buying convenience as they have the buying power.
To grab people’s attention via an attractive manner via framing the posters with plastic bottles or visual demonstration like short video clips would capture more attention.
Link fro the position paper: https://sec.org.sg/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/DT_PlasticResourceResearch_28Aug2018-FINAL_with-Addendum-19.pdf
Email from ZeroWaste
An important part of the Singapore Green Plan is Sustainable Living
Aim: circular economy and work towards being a Zero Waste Nation, by reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill by 30% by 2030. To achieve this, we want to promote “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle” as a norm for citizens and businesses.
Effective methods: Teaching in Digital Formats Teaching habit-forming actions in schools.
It can be conducted via having audio/visual elements, injecting interactivity and fun when answering questions. and finally even scenario-based strories. Learning with the aid of a computer and mouse can simulate situations and prompt students to make choices that have consequences.
These are also some strategies that can impact and change consumer's behaviours shown below
Link for Ministry of sustainability and the Environment websites www.mse.gov.sg/resources
Link for Say Yes to Waste Less Campaign https://www.cgs.gov.sg/what-we-do/towardszerowaste/sayyes
Link for Singapore’s inaugural Zero Waste Masterplan https://www.towardszerowaste.gov.sg/zero-waste-masterplan/
Link for Accelerating efforts to reduce waste under the Singapore Green Plan 2030 https://www.mse.gov.sg/cos/sustainable-living
Link for Posters and infographics for Clean and Green Singapore https://www.cgs.gov.sg/resources
Link for NEA resources. Posters can be found under Education Materials > Posters. https://www.nea.gov.sg/corporate-functions/resources
Link for NEA waste minimization and recycling resources https://www.nea.gov.sg/our-services/waste-management/3r-programmes-and-resources/waste-minimisation-and-recycling
Link for Citizen’s workgroup on reducing excessive consumption of disposables report 2020-2021 https://www.cgs.gov.sg/docs/default-source/resources/citizens-workgroup-on-reducing-excessive-consumption-of-disposables.pdf?sfvrsn=2294a0f1_2
Link for Latest speeches on waste minimization www.mse.gov.sg/news
Interview with TPGIG
target audience: Depends on wherther its an internal or external evcent/campaign. But most of the time its TP staff and students
get attention: Through social media (instagram page) or through whatsapp group messages
How to be more convincing?
Get celebrities or famous people that people can trust. Use reliable infomation from government websites and actual statistics
Suggestions on posters and slides?
dont put many colours and just make it simple
Interview with PlasticLite
How to get attention?
To make it fun make a video with storyline or Mini series. deliver information in a new way. E book series
Who's thetarget audience?
E books to target kids. Bouce bags target community and seniors
Better to have scary statistics vs incentives?
statistics give them a reality check. but when there's too many of these scary message people kinda get immune to it and we wont get the reaction we want from the people. Thus i feel in the long term a positive take or approach will be better
Are there any ways to get the public's attention?
green events/booths
Other ways to nudge public other than incentives and fines?
nudging people out of their like habits of continuing a lot of plastic however we need a more holistic approach yeah because for awareness we need it to have a long-term
How to be more convincing?
I believes that visuals are very important so sometimes they speak louder than the content. poster shouldn't be too crowded with information it should be very easy to read and to the point what are you trying to convey. making it more relevant to your audience
Suggestions on posters and slides?
simple stuff and maybe like color certain theme themes of colors