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Are These All That We Can Recycle?

Recycling, in many human’s mind, is a process or action whereby you dump something used or unused into something called the recycling bins. These bins are often painted in different colours according to each designated category of recyclables. Of course, human being human, they need to be educated n terms of what goes into which coloured bin. Despite that, you can still find them shoving the wrong stuff into the wrong bin, or worse – treating them like a normal rubbish bin!

Obviously, human need a hell a lot of programming in recycling. After all, this is such a new thing to them. They have been taking greedily and thoughtlessly from their mother earth for millions of years!

How do you programme the recycling act into human? First and foremost, the authority (Yes, it’s got to be an authority. Anyone without a title can never convince a human being) has to let these people know what can be recycled. Hence, the different coloured bins for different types of recyclable materials.

HOWEVER, in Singapore (perhaps in many other countries too), apparently there are only 3 groups of recyclables: paper, aluminium cans, and plastic and glass bottles. I beg your pardon? Are these all that we can recycle? The country consume thousands of types of plastic containers daily, in takeaways, layers of excessive packaging, drink cartons, bags, and so on, and so on. Do not tell me that there are only 3 recycling services available in the whole country!

What do I do with the tonnes of receipts I get on a daily basis?
What do I do with movie tickets?
What do I do with those fancy plastic boxes used for packing sushi?
What do I do with used paperclips and staples?

And so on, and so on...

I sometimes find myself standing there staring at the bins, and not knowing which bin to place my recyclables in.


And as you can see from the picture here, the slots on the bins are rather narrow – in fact – too narrow for most things. You can’t put a large detergent bottle or large milk bottle through the little hole. Are the authorities subtly telling us that they do not accept anything that doesn’t go through the hole of that specific size?

Hmm… that reminds me – this country does have specified size diagrams pasted at the entrance of their National Library, to determine the size of bag you can carry into the premise.

Talk about encouraging green mission.

Comments

Anonymous said…
ironically enough, i think the bins are designed by Raffles Design..
Anonymous said…
Which only reflects the lack of insight or knowledge on the issue. Obviously just a design for design's sake, that doesn't even look good!

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