S'pore a clean city? Don't joke

Singapore is a clean city? Let's get real, says the new chief of the war against littering, Liak Teng Lit.

"We should be known as a cleaned city, not a clean city. Calling ourselves a clean city, that's a joke," he told The Sunday Times.

"We have First World infrastructure, but Third World behaviour. There's litter everywhere, public toilets we hesitate to use, dirty tables at coffee shops and disease outbreaks waiting to happen."

The Alexandra Health group chief executive officer heads the recently "refreshed" Keep Singapore Clean Movement, which is led by the Public Hygiene Council, which he chairs. It works with the Singapore Kindness and Keep Singapore Beautiful movements and the National Environment Agency in the latest anti-littering effort.

He is all for shaming and punishing litterbugs because the mess you see in Singapore today is evidence that four decades of anti-litter campaigns are in tatters.

"We all need to be considerate. But equally important, we need to expect people to be considerate to us," he said.

"When you see a litterbug, you should get angry with him and tell him not to do it."

So Liak is in favour of several tough new ideas:

Motorists who sweep used tissues and assorted junk from their cars to carpark floors and drive off should be banned from parking there for six months.

Litterbugs should perform Corrective Work Orders where they are caught - usually near their homes, so that they are embarrassed in front of their neighbours.

Residents should be allowed to choose how many cleaners they want for their estate and pay accordingly.

And thousands of citizens should be given the power to issue summonses to offenders, focusing particularly on littering hot spots such as the East Coast Park.

He is also planning to set up a "Shame On You" website for people to upload photos and videos of inconsiderate behaviour they have witnessed.

"We advocate shaming the litterbug," he said. "If you behave badly and you're exposed, don't blame others for being a pig."

Liak divides Singaporeans into three groups he calls "the good" majority, "the bad" and "the ugly" minority.

While more than six in 10 say they do not litter and more than three in 10 say they bin their rubbish only when it is convenient, at least one in 100 litters wilfully.

"We need a concerted effort by the good majority to make littering and dirty habits as unacceptable as queue-jumping here," he said. "The idea is for the good to act, the bad to behave and for the ugly to be punished. Enforcement will focus on these ugly Singaporeans."

He admits it will be an uphill task.

Despite annual campaigns and programmes since 1968 to reinforce the anti-littering message and an army of 70,000 cleaners, the problem remains.

Every year, there are about 3,500 complaints about littering in public places, said the NEA, although the number of littering offences went down from 41,392 in 2009 to 11,131 last year.

NEA said it has been shifting focus to engage the public to take ownership and exercise social responsibility to keep their environment clean.

Since August, it has also put in place surveillance cameras to catch high-rise litterbugs and is working with community partners to encourage residents to form litter-watch groups.

"With the community itself exhibiting a zero-tolerance attitude and acting against high-rise littering, there will be more social pressure on litterbugs to bin their rubbish properly," said an NEA spokesman.

Liak aims to get 100 schools, community groups and businesses to join the effort over the next three months and become "bright spots" - model examples of how to keep a place clean and litter-free.

"The idea is to have more and more bright spots, which can then slowly join into one," he said.