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 ?