5 ideas of solution on Recycle

Voucher Rebate
Voucher Rebate is to reward people when they recycle. The recycling rate will be calculated and accumulate every end of the month. NTUC vouchers will only be given to household that exceed certain rate of recycling.
-          Encourage more people to recycle.
-          Reward people that recycle more.
-          Attractive way to promote recycle
-          People only recycle when they are rewarded
-          Difficult to keep track how much each household recycle.

Trash Collecting Day
Trash Collecting Day is a system that different types of waste materials will be collected every day. Providing convenience to the residence. For example, every Monday trash collector will go to each household to collect plastics waste for recycle. Tuesday will be electronic and follow by the other days.
-          Provide convenient way for residence to recycle.
-          Easier to sort the trash
-          Increase the rate of recycling
-          Some people might find it difficult to follow the schedule for the trash collecting

Pay the Fine
Pay the fine, is to create a new law for recycling. Every household are responsible to sort out their trash for recycle. Household which do not sort out the trash, the trash collector will not collect the trash. After certain amount of accumulation of trash that did not sort out and collected, the household will be charge and be fine.
-          People will start to sort out their trash.
-          Build up responsibility for their trash.
-          Recycle problem will be decrease.
-          Forcing people to sort out their trash.
-          People will be unhappy with the new law.

Green Bin
The Green Bin is a garbage bin for individual household. The Green Bin is design in several holes indicate different type of waste materials. It is attached to the wall in the kitchen.
-          Convenient for sorting
-          out rubbish.
-          Saving space
-          The holes might be too small for big trash.

Door-to-door Collection Day
Door-to-door collection is that every Sunday, the trash collector will drop by each household to collect all the trash. All the trash has to be sort out by the residence themselves. Each household will be given different trash bags for them to sort out their own trash for recycling.
-          Encourage people to start recycling.
-          More convenient for residence.
-          Trash may accumulate too much along the corridor.
-          Un-hygiene
-          Residence might find it too long to wait for the collector to collect their trash

1 of the Housewife Interview

Mrs Keisuke Cherie, 32 years old, has a 7 year old daughter and a Japanese husband. Mrs Keisuke’s family lives in a private property terrace house at Leith Park road. She is also a full time housewife while her husband works in a foreign company as a manager. Her daughter attends primary 1 in a local school. Her hobbies are basically baking, cooking and doing art and crafts.

Mrs Keisuke has to wake up 6am in the morning to prepare her daughter for school and her husband for work. She has to bring her daughter to school and get home to do laundry. Then during the afternoon she will head out to meet her cousin who is also a housewife for lunch as they both live near. Then, she will also head to SerangoonNex Mall for groceries shopping at the supermarket. She loves baking and cooking stuffs. She will prepare some tea break snacks around late afternoon and fetch my daughter from the student care. She will prepare dinner during evening. After dinner, she will spend time guiding her daughter doing school work, or do some art and craft with her. She will spread out the house chores through the week. She will also do some baking or having some crafts session over the weekends with her daughter and sisters.

She does not have much recycle knowledge. She does not recycle at home, she only recycles when she sees recycle bin on streets or public places. The reasons she does not recycle at home because she does not really know what to do with the trash if she wants to recycle them. There will be a big garbage bin outside each house but they are not recycling bins, and that is the only bin she can disposes the trash. Therefore it is too inconvenient for her to recycle. She does craft work at home, there will be lots of unwanted materials, but it is too difficult to sort all the small pieces just to recycle them. Rubbish were all thrown together, there are mixture of rubbish such as paper, wrappers, leftover food and many more, she finds that it is tough to sort them all out.

3R Campaign

The 3R System

The name of the design is “The 3R System”.3R stands for Recycle, Rebate and Redeem. People have to recycle first to get points rebate, lastly they will able to redeem the points at several places such as Fair Price (NTUC), OG (Singapore based Department Store).

Trash Collecting Day:

Trash Collectors will drop by at each household to collect the waste materials on every Wednesday and Saturday. On Wednesday, they will collect Plastics and Electronic waste materials. On Saturday, they will collect Papers, Metals and others waste materials. Label Trash Bags will also be provided every week for residence to sort out the waste. Residence will just have to leave the garbage outside the house during those collecting days. Waste materials that place outside the door for collection on the wrong materials day will not be collected. Trash Collector will weight and key into the system of how much waste the household recycled.

Point-Card System:

Every Singaporean will sign up a 3R account under their names. To activate their account, the person must firstly visit the website www.3Rs.com.sg and the Point-Card will be sent to the address stated in the registration within 2 weeks time. Upon the trash collection from each household, only 1 point-card account will be keyed into the system for the points.

If trash is too much, bring it to the nearest Neighbourhood Community Centre for recycling, state the name and IC numbers to update the points. Everyone is able to recycle at the Neighbourhood Community Centre every day except Public Holidays.

Every 1 kg recycled will get 100 points to the account. The point system account is valid for life time, points can be accumulated up until a year. Points will be re-new every year. Points are able to be checked on the website as well as the neighbourhood community centre. Points can be redeemed at all Fair Price (NTUC) outlets and OG (Singapore based Department store).   

If the card is misplaced or found, please return it to the Neighbourhood Community Centre.

What can be recycle?


There is a lot of materials in this world that is able to recycle but most of the people do not know about that. Thus whenever people saw a recycle bin and their holding a recyclable rubbish they just throw it to the recycle bin without knowing that some of the parts are not recyclable. Actually there is a lot of materials that can be recycled. For example the common things that is recyclable is glass drinking bottles. The glass are able to recycle but the lids must recycle separately. When recycling the glass drinking bottles do not forget to leave the lids off. Other materials such as milk cartons or any other cartons are able to recycle as well.  Paper from magazines, newspapers, waste office paper and contact books also recyclable as well as aluminum drink can, steel food cans, paint tins, aerosol containers, coffee tins, bottle tops and jar lids. Plastics or any kind of things with recyclable symbols on them are also able to recycle.


Knowing that are many things are able to recycle but take note also that there is some items cannot be recycled according to the range, complexity to hazards. This kinds of items need to separate for example light bulbs. On some places they provide a drop off areas for light bulbs collecting to avoid mercury contamination of the landfill. Plastics without recycling symbols might not be able to recycle. Drinking glasses, crockery, Pyrex or other ovenproof glass as well as ceramics are not able to recycle. Other things that are unable to recycle also are carbon paper, foil wrapping, laminated paper, gift ribbon and wrapping, sticker, foil potato chip bags.

Some recycling place are not accepting aerosol. Mirrors, window glass or broken glass are able to recycle also. Item contaminated with food such as take away containers and pizza boxes, items such as tetra packs, batteries, paint tin, oil, polystyrene, tin foil, clothing may be recyclable but depend on which country or what processing plants are being used. There are also some things that people should not recycle because it was considered dirty but unfortunately turned up in recycle from time to time like dead animals, medical waste, used diapers or sanitary ware, used syringes and unwanted live animals. These kinds of act are considered are irresponsible, cruel and ignorant but most people do this due to economic problems.

Recycling Week at Australia

Previously my group has done several case studies on recycling campaign across country. One of the case study is on Recycling in Australia.

Although Australia regarded as having relatively established recycling services, it is also the second highest per capita producers of waste in the world. It produces over 18 million tons of waste in a year. As the news released by Planet Ark Environmental Foundation, people in Australia also started to take part in this problem.
Once a year, Planet Ark Environmental Foundation holds National Recycling Week where in one-week people in Australia recycle their waste. It is also especially applied at school and workplaces. It aims to engage students in learning about the environmental benefits of recycling, to increase the number of businesses/workplaces involved in recycling, and also promoting the re-use and recycling initiatives in the community. 

Overall, it aims to bring national focus in environmental benefits of recycling, including greater tonnage and less contamination, of kerbside, industrial and community recycling programs. Popular with media, Planet Ark Environmental use media to do the campaign. They embrace every sponsorship to make this happened every year and use celebrities such as Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Newton-John, Steve Irwin, Nicole Kidman, etcetera to front its campaign.
The result of this act brings Australia to a better environmental. Recycle in this country has rapidly increased and become one of countries which succeed in recycle.



Through the process of brainstorming, 101 ideas compiled into a mind-map. This brainstorming process states clearly on what are the possible solutions, current solutions and new ideas that can be invented for the future. Discovered different ways of ideas that can improve the solutions on recycling problem faced. 

We came out with all the possible solutions towards the problem, without holding back any ideas. We are encourage not to restrict any ideas of solution, so that we are able to see all the possible and futuristic solutions. Everyone has contribute their own individuals creative ideas and have this mind map complete. Through this process we are able to see the situation in a wider perspective.

Recycle in Taiwan

Taiwan is a small island with limited natural resources, most of the raw materials in Taiwan were imported. To solve the increasingly serious waste problem and encourage a closed-loop economy that minimizes resource loss, the Environmental Protection Administration of Taiwan (EPAT) actively promotes resource recovery and has developed standards for collection, waste treatment and recycling of MSW. Among the wastes targeted by EPAT’s recycling and resource recovery program, waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) are increasing the most rapidly.
 The various materials contained in WEEE are complicated. They may include hazardous substances such as lead, cadmium, mercury, and chlorofluorocarbons. If WEEE is not collected, stored and recycled in an environmentally sound manner, these substances can cause harm to human health and the environment. At the same time, WEEE also contain valuable resources, including gold, silver, copper, and palladium, whose recovery can support a closed-loop economy. For these reasons, it has been important to EPAT to define standards for WEEE treatment and incentivize WEEE recycling as part of its broader recycling and resource recovery program.
EPAT’s recycling efforts began when the Waste Disposal Act of 1979 was amended in March 1997 to require recycling and resource recovery for selected MSW, or regulated recyclable wastes (RRW). EPAT established the 4-in-1 Recycling Program. This program integrates manufacturers and importers of new RRW products into a complete system that also includes recyclers, municipal collection teams, and community residents. To develop the 4-in-1 Recycling Program, EPAT looked at the policies of countries such as Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Australia and Germany, and adapted components of these systems to local culture.