Progress of Nationwide Reusable Dining-ware Scheme

Mr Leon Perera asked the Minister for Sustainability and the Environment (a) whether the Ministry is able to provide updates on the progress of the Nationwide Reusable Dining-ware Scheme that was proposed by the Citizens’ Workgroup on Reducing Excessive Consumption of Disposables; and (b) whether it will consider banning disposables for dining-in at all chain restaurants as part of the scheme.

The Citizens’ Workgroup on Reducing Excessive Consumption of Disposables proposed the National Reusable Dining-ware Scheme which included a ban on disposables for dine-in at food and beverage (F&B) establishments and implementing a reusable takeaway container scheme for consumers to rent containers to take away food.

The public sector is taking the lead to reduce the use of disposables for dine-in meals. For example, the use of disposable crockery and cutlery for dine-in meals has been disallowed at new hawker centres since 2016, and for all new stallholders in existing hawker centres since 2018. In addition, stallholders in the eight existing hawker centres that have adopted centralised dishwashing services under the Productive Hawker Centres programme have also switched to using reusable common crockery for dine-in meals.

Some F&B establishments have implemented reusable takeaway container rental systems. For example, various F&B establishments, including the operator of the Socially-conscious Enterprise Hawker Centre at Our Tampines Hub, have partnered Muuse, a startup providing reusables rental solutions, to provide customers with reusable takeaway food containers for rental. Given the wide range of business models, premises types and food types in the F&B industry, F&B establishments are best placed to determine if a reusables rental system is suitable for them.