~Land Pollution~

Introduction

Do you know that Singaporeans throw away 2.8 million tons of rubbish in 1999?

If this amount of rubbish is stacked up to a man height of 1.7 meters it would occupy up to 350 football fields!

Every day a Singaporean discards 1.1 kilograms of rubbish. Can you imagine the accumulated stack of rubbish that we will have a day?

Land pollution in Singapore occurs mainly in 3 ways:

1. Littering

2. Illegal dumping of domestic waste

3. Poor waste management from construction sites and industrial  estates

No Littering Sign

         Singaporeans have a name for these people; they are called "Litter Bugs".    

A public rubbish bin

                           Mechanical sweepers clean roads in Singapore everyday.

2. Illegal dumping of domestic waste

Homes and offices also have a big impact on the amount of rubbish as people leave behind and throw away packaging materials, plastic bottles, unfinished food.  Piles of dirty and rotting materials may attract rodents and insects that may carry organisms dangerous to our health.

Therefore other physical solutions have to be employed in Singapore to alleviate the problem of illegal dumping.

Rubbish dumped illegally

3. Poor waste management from construction sites and industrial estates.

This factor also causes major pollution. Construction firms burn their waste on-site instead of bringing the rubbish to the proper grounds for disposal.

In doing so, the building contractors hope to save money and time. These errant contractors run the risk of losing their license if they are caught.

Dusty and dirty construction sites

Singaporean Solutions

• Disposal of rubbish

Solid waste collection in Singapore is highly automated, clean and is one of the most efficient in the region. This picture shows how the rubbish is collected from our homes, offices and buildings and sent to the incinerators.                                

It is important to clear land rubbish regularly because of the large amount of waste that can be accumulated. In the early days, as there was no system of sewage and refuse collection, people would just throw their rubbish anywhere and there were no laws against such actions.

It was a tough and extremely difficult task to collect rubbish in the early days. They had only pushing carts to contain their collected rubbish. There were lots of flies buzzing around and the waste is rotting in the open air.

But now, it is totally different, we have modern machinery to help us collect the rubbish. People would just have to tie their rubbish in plastic bags and throw it down into chutes found in their very own houses and  there will be rubbish trucks to collect the rubbish regularly everyday.

• Incineration of rubbish

In Singapore, we have four incineration plants. These incineration plants generate energy from the heat that is produced in the process of burning the rubbish. The first incineration plant was built at Ulu Pandan in 1979. Two other  incineration plants were built at Tuas and Senoko in 1986 and 1992 respectively. These two incineration plants were built to help cope with the increasing of amount of rubbish discarded by Singaporeans.

Senoko Incineration Plant

The fourth incineration plant, which is at Tuas South, cost the  government $900 million. This extra incineration plant will cope with the projected increase in rubbish.

The government has also plans to built fifth incineration plant and it was to be built adjacent to the Tuas South Incineration Plant. This new incineration plant is scheduled to be completed in the year 2004.

Control Room at Ulu Pandan Incineration Plant

Incineration is a good way of disposing rubbish as it can recover scrap metal for recycling.

One incineration plant has enough energy to power two hosing estates  and recover 28,800 tones of scrap metal for recycling.

Although, burning reduces the waste by 90%, but there is also another 10% of ashes that need to be disposed in landfills.

— Introduction

— Landfills and Recycling