The National Environment Agency (NEA) and mega furniture retailer IKEA have launched a new initiative to encourage recycling.

Bins in your house for your recyclables

According to a NEA press release, 18,000 HDB households will each be able to get a free recycling bin, in the hopes that families will be able to recycle easily and regularly.

Residents occupying new Built-To-Order (BTO) flats in several precincts such as MacPherson, Bidadari, Sembawang, and Sengkang will be eligible for this scheme.

These 18,000 households will receive a voucher via mail, which they can then use from August 24 onwards to redeem the free bin, from either IKEA outlet at Tampines or Alexandra.

Reminder for recycling

The bins have an 11 litre capacity, and will hopefully help serve as a visual reminder for residents to recycle.

Recyclables can be accumulated inside the bin before residents deposit them in the blue bins at the foot of their HDB blocks.

Each bin comes with a prominent blue sticker labelling it as a recycling bin, and includes tips and information on what can and cannot be recycled, as well as a reminder for residents to wash their recyclables before dumping them.

NEA's chief executive officer Tan Meng Dui said,

"For the HDB households which will benefit from this new initiative, the in-home recycling bin makes recycling things more convenient than disposing them as garbage."

Convenience is an important factor

This initiative follows 2018 surveys on domestic recycling, conducted by the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources (MEWR) and NEA.

The surveys found that 60 per cent of households in Singapore recycled regularly. However, convenience was an important contributing factor for recycling.

Residents also mentioned that having too few items to recycle was one of the reasons they did not do so.

Conventional habits was found to be another major factor when it comes to recycling. New homeowners are reportedly more receptive to new lifestyle changes — which would likely make the adoption of new recycling habits easier.

This could explain the implementation of the scheme in newer households.

Bins made from 60 per cent recycled plastic

According to NEA, discussions were held with members of the public from February to March 2019 to gather feedback on the most appropriate design for the recycling bin.

The survey found that residents generally preferred recycling receptacles that were "durable, washable, functional, and in neutral colours".

The prototype that IKEA has since rolled out takes into account this feedback, and to ensure that it was produced sustainably, all bins were manufactured from 60 per cent recycled plastic.

Mixed reactions

The initiative seems to have drawn mixed reactions online.

Some have applauded the government and IKEA for taking steps to reduce the waste we produce.

Many though, were not very convinced. Some were doubtful that the bin would be used as per its purpose, while others questioned whether sorting their recyclables was useful considering Singapore sends its waste to be recycled overseas.

Other netizens asked why the bins were only for a few precincts in Singapore, and unavailable for the large majority of Singaporean households.

One netizen pointed out that providing bins wasn't enough to change a deeply-ingrained throwaway culture, and that the government should tackle the source of the problem by taxing businesses for the plastic they produce, or making it more "convenient for consumers to use and buy less cheap and disposable plastics".

Meanwhile, another netizen rather aptly pointed out the potential pitfalls of the scheme.

Top photo from NEA / FB and Victor Lee / FB