20100726 Wet and Soak

Heavy rain cause flood in Singapore everywhere including Joo Chiat and Telok Kurau.

Wake up in the morning and see that the red bin left outside the apartment was wet and soak.

All the items inside (especially papers) were spoiled.

This method of collection is just not working. Hope someone from NEA think about this hard enough. Do it the right way. Don't just do it for the sake of doing it.

20100518 Veolia Collection Team

They come in the afternoon at 1524

20100504 Recycling Bin become Trash Bin

Leaving the recycling bin outside is not a good idea. People pass by will throw all sorts of rubbish inside. It is no difference from a regular trash bin.

20100429 Cartons boxes in the trash

I saw these carton boxes at the red recycling bin this morning. These must be from the new tenant who moved in (#02-04). Somehow, in the afternoon, I was surprised that the carton boxes were all thrown into the big trash bin outside. How did this ? These carton boxes are definitely recyclable. Such a waste !

20100426 Inconsiderate

I just don't understand why people are so lazy to put the things INTO the bin ?

20100412 Unsightly

I kept wondering, why won't people (a) put the things INTO the bin, or (b) when the bin is full, wait for the next time ? I find this very unsightly ! This is fire hazard and health hazard. Took this picture on 12 Apr 2010 (Monday). Hope that the Veolia people will come on time tomorrow to clear it.

NEA replied my email. They contacted Veolia. Apparently the problem was Veolia cannot contact our cleaner. Following NEA's action, they contacted our cleaner and arranged for it to push the bin outside. Veolia visited again in the evening and collected the items.

When I saw it outside the gate yesterday evening, I thought oh no ! Other karang guni might have taken the items away. I am not sure what is left. Or was it just Veolia who emptied the recycling bin.

We only have a part-time cleaner. Small estate. We don't need a full time cleaner. And we don't have any security guard. Therefore the gates are locked all the time (although some irresponsible people still sometime left it open, but this is a separate issue).

Is leaving the recycling bin outside a solution ? It is really up to Veolia. Our recycling scheme is one that 'we don't need to pay Veolia for the collection' (in other bigger estates, they have to pay the collector to collect the recycling items - on top of the regular daily waste collection) because they can collect the valuable items (papers) and off-set with the cost of collecting non-valuable items (plastic). If we leave the bin outside, there is a risk that the more valuable items will be taken away by someone else. So what is left for Veolia ?

It looks like there isn't a good solution at this point in time - while NEA is pushing ahead for national recycling programmes. URA is allowing more and more small apartments like ours to be built (just look around Telok Kurau, how many cranes are there...how many sign boards and banners on new development projects).

So whose problem is this ? How to solve it ?