Standard of Cleanliness in Singapore

Deputy Speaker, Sir, I thank the hon Member for a quintessential Lee Bee Wah speech, brutally frank, but straight from the heart and from a good heart. I just want to make five points. First, I believe, as Singaporeans, we need to reaffirm our vision to ensure that Singapore remains one of the cleanest and greenest cities in the world. This is an ambition that we must maintain. Second, we must start with an honest appraisal of our values, our attitudes, our mindset, our behaviour and our sense of collective responsibilities. Third, I echo Er Dr Lee's point that this has to be an all-out effort by all segments of our society to prevent, to detect, to deter and to enforce against littering and to use the many new technologies which are available. Fourth, litter attracts litter. That means we have to make sure that we have a litter-free environment to start with. Fifth, that the time has come for us to review our penalties and fines, unfortunately, for this scourge.

Let us start with the first point. A clean and green Singapore. This was the outcome of an ambitious vision by our founding Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Singaporeans at that time believed in and supported this vision and over 44 years, as Er Dr Lee has mentioned, we transformed our city through meticulous cleaning, assiduous public campaigns, and strict enforcement.

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Today, a clean city is not unique. There are many clean cities in the world. But a clean city is a source of competitive advantage and it is a badge of honour. And I am sure that all Members would agree that this is something that Singapore cannot afford to backslide on. Having said that, let me also equally, honestly state that we can and must do much better. Quite frankly, Singapore today is a clean city, but is it a clean city, or a cleaned city because of our army of 70,000 cleaners?

The National Environment Agency (NEA) has for many years – if you go to the website, you would see the tagline – been stating that "A clean city is a strong reflection of our moral and civic values". But clean cities do not just come about by chance. As citizens, we must individually and collectively take responsibility for the cleanliness of our homes and our neighbourhoods, because this is something intrinsic within us. It is a reflection of what we hold to be important in our lives.

Er Dr Lee mentioned that one in five of our households today in Singapore have domestic help. I cannot help wondering how many of us – let us be equally honest – make sure that our children are taught to pick up after themselves. Or do we wittingly or unwittingly communicate that there is always going to be someone to clean after a Singaporean. Think about that.

The NEA survey in 2010 found that 63% of Singaporeans would not litter but the troubling finding is that one-third of Singaporeans would litter if they think they could get away with it. We have to find a way to deal with this problem. In fact, it is a problem caused by a minority but the burden is borne by the majority of us who have to deal with a polluted, dirty and unhealthy environment and ultimately have to also bear the cost of imposing these burdens on to cleaners. Every single Member of Parliament is involved with a Town Council. We all know that this is a problem which we all carry. This cuts across party lines.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew first launched the Keep Singapore Clean campaign in 1968. He said that everybody can learn and acquire the habit of treating common user areas as one's own home to be kept clean and maintained. These are words 44 years later but still relevant and we are still challenged by that. The Keep Singapore Clean message was broadcast through the mass media, stamped even on letters from the Government and statutory boards. At that time, the Government brought volunteers out onto the streets. They called them "Broomstick Brigades" to clean up the common areas of our constituencies. I can see from recent media reports that some residents have started to undertake their own cleaning brigades albeit only in the vicinity of their homes or outside their common corridors. We need to have more of such efforts. We need Members of Parliament to take the lead in this because we need to rediscover, reaffirm our civic values as individuals and as communities. We need to teach everyone that we have to pick up after ourselves, whether that means picking up rubbish within the home or outside in the common corridor or any neighbourhood. That is not something to be embarrassed about or to be ashamed of. That is a simple act of civic responsibility.

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Keeping Singapore Clean has become a well-known slogan. We even have a reputation for being a fine city. Some tourists still buy those T-shirts and we laugh about it. In fact, there is a serious point behind this. I am glad that, in fact, Singaporeans do take pride in the fact that we are a clean city and that we are a fine city. Even now, I receive – and I am sure many of you receive – many calls and e-mails from Singaporeans and especially from our constituents when the neighbourhood is littered. Some of them are very, very angry and get almost personal. If you look beyond their anger, in fact, it springs from a sense of wounded pride that their neighbourhood does not meet the standards which they hope for. So, as Members of Parliament, I think we have to recognise and accept that their anger, in fact, is righteous anger. And we need to respond appropriately.

We launched the refreshed Keep Singapore Clean movement last month and I suggested that these future movements be led from the ground by the Public Hygiene Council, the Singapore Kindness Movement, the Keep Singapore Beautiful Movement. These movements were built up on past efforts of the NEA's litter-free ambassador programme and other campaigns like "Let's do the Right Thing, Bin It" campaign. The anti-littering mindset needs to be inculcated from a young age and we need to underline the importance of this programme by making sure we reach out to schools and to young people. Let me cite a good example.

The Keep Singapore Beautiful Movement has developed a Know Cleaners Day – spelt K-N-O-W. It is a pun. "No" cleaners and "knowing" cleaners. Basically, the youths take on the role of cleaners in order to better understand the work and to appreciate the efforts put in by cleaners. In June this year, the youth became cleaners for a day in Tiong Bahru Food Centre. They encouraged their patrons to return their trays and to clear up after they finished their meals. The response was very positive and more than 200 members of the public returned their trays on that day. Whether we can maintain that is the big question.

In July, the Movement partnered the ITE College East to organise a Know Cleaners Day where hundreds of students and staff took on the task of cleaning their own campus. Such programmes enable our young people to understand first-hand the challenges of cleaning. But I think more important than that, if you stop to realise that every single piece of litter that you picked up is because someone else just could not be bothered and dropped it. Except for leaves on the road, everything else is caused by your fellow men. The purpose of having a Know Cleaners Day – and Er Dr Lee mentioned she is leading one such effort in her own constituency – is that it, in fact, makes you appreciate how selfish a small minority of people in our community are, and how the rest of our community, directly or indirectly, are having to carry that burden.

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We also agree that it is about creating a social norm. You know in life, people do not just respond to carrots-and-sticks, penalties and fines. Many of our actions as human beings depend on impulse, habit or on peer pressure. Think about these things. Impulse – spur of the moment, just chuck it. Habit – I have always dumped tissue paper outside my flat, so I just carry on. Peer pressure – everyone else does it, so what is the big deal?

So, you see, merely increasing fines by itself or having more advertisements on television will not be sufficient. And I totally agree with Er Dr Lee on that point. Just as we had previously organised the "Broomstick Brigades", we now work with the Members of Parliament, with the advisors, with the grassroots, the residents' committees, community leaders to remind everyone and to create peer pressure to maintain a clean environment. As Er Dr Lee graphically described – in fact we have more means today than ever before to identify, deter and, if it need be, to shame the recalcitrants amongst us.

The Public Hygiene Council has an on-going competition. It is called I Love my Singapore. Snap the good, the bad and the ugly. This is to encourage people to take photographs and nowadays everyone has camera in his phone. Take pictures of the good and the bad hygiene practices, upload it onto the Facebook page and then we will have an online voting contest for the "best" – I use the word best in inverted commas – photo. By encouraging everyone to participate in this, we actually achieve the point which Er Dr Lee mentioned. We need to tell everyone and especially the minority of us who are prone to litter that you will be seen. Someone, somewhere has seen you, snapped it and we will detect it.

We also know that litter attracts more litter. This is almost like fertility. You have one clump of litter outside the lift lobby or the void deck. Miraculously, it reproduces itself. But again, you stop to think about it. Most people do not want to be the first person who drops that piece of litter at the lift lobby or the void deck. So, that is why it is very important that we make sure the environment is clean to begin with. That is why NEA, Town Councils and all the Government agencies still have to work very hard.

We made an important step in April this year when we set up the Department of Public Cleanliness (DPC). The DPC will integrate the cleaning of all public areas including roads, pavements, drains, parks, vacant lands so that no public area will fall through the cracks. If anyone does detect any area which seems to have slipped through the cracks because of inter-agency coordination, please let me know.

We have to make sure that we start with a clean slate. The DPC has also been paying close attention to public feedback. We have even created apps which will allow people to photograph and send notifications, for example areas with litter. The DPC then has to scramble to make sure a response team resolves it and uploads the picture that shows the problem has been resolved.

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Public education and community engagement are also part of the solution. We have in place an enforcement regime against littering offenders. Between 2011 and August 2012, we caught 17,627 people for littering.