Waste Me Not

We walked past some HDB flats this morning before the cleaners finished their round of cleaning. It was appalling. Rubbish was strewn ironically everywhere around the bins. My first thoughts were genuinely of disgust and anger. How could anyone have done such a senseless and selfish act?! Then that gave way to a new revelation. Someone must have been sifting through the rubbish in search for glass bottles, plastic items or cans! I suppose these people are our environmentalists, making recycling their personal business. They won't have designer logos or fancy trucks but they are twice as motivated and they work hard.

We seldom question what happen to those stuff we dump in recycling bins we see in malls, airports or even in my own estate. Are they collected and sold to private corporations to be recycled? Who pay for the service and who pocket the profits? Why not help those individuals do their job better? We can place more recycling bins (4-in-1 kind) at void decks or anywhere suitable. If we all sort our garbage in their respective bins, they can always just pick those items up and leave the general waste alone. There would be no reason to search through the rubbish and create a mess behind.

Give these people some credit and let them earn a living. I'm not saying I applaud them but it's a possible solution. They probably appreciate the profits more than those corporations (maybe not). The only problem is the cost incurred for supplying and maintaining those bins. But at least they don't need to be paid to collect those recyclables. Also, I doubt those private corporations are going to be very happy about the loss of revenue.

I am not very environmentally conscious but I will start sorting our rubbish once we move back home. I think we need to develop better practices so that our kids and the future generations can have a chance to strive in this ailing world. A friend of mine said," ... (recycling)... we are not doing for us, we are doing for our kids and the future generations... "