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online 10 Sep 05 When a little child decided to save plastic bags Letter from irene tan Letter from liu i-chun Children should front the clean and green campaign We were in a titbits shop one day when my six-year-old son picked up a packet of chips. At the checkout counter, the cashier mechanically dished out a plastic bag and put the packet of chips into it. While I was taking out the money from my purse to pay her, my son said to me softly: "Mummy, I do not want the plastic bag. We can save one bag." It took me two seconds to register what he had said. Imagine the look on the cashier's face when I repeated what my son had said and returned the plastic bag to her. She muttered a bashful "thank you" to us. That incident also helped me recall my primary school days when children were taught the importance of keeping Singapore clean. We were reminded constantly to throw all litter into the "Please Use Me" dustbins. Sadly, those three magical words have become lost over the years. I would dearly like to know if such dustbins are still in use anywhere in Singapore today. My purpose is to draw from the above two incidents that children are our best ambassadors for the Clean and Green campaign. In the bid to gain academic excellence, we may have become negligent in not educating our children that social responsibility is equally important. Conditioning our future leaders when they are young is more important than having to deal with the social problems later. I am sure that children will be motivated to keep the city clean and green if the undesirable consequences are explained clearly to them. For a start, maybe we should re-introduce attractive dustbins with the words "Please Use Me" to schools again? It's not about bag disposal, it's about reducing waste I refer to the letter "Make that green swap: Start using durable bags instead of plastic ones" by the National Environment Agency's (NEA) Mr Ong Seng Eng in response to my letter, "Cut trash - charge for plastic bags" (Sept 6) and "Charging for trash bags can only help recycling efforts" by Christina Lee Li Nan (Sept 7). I am afraid he has missed the more important point I raised pertaining to waste management. While the disposal of plastic bags may not be a problem in Singapore, surely managing the volume of waste is. If the amount of waste produced in Singapore can be reduced by 50 per cent, the ashes and pollution generated during the incineration process can be reduced, and the demand for landfill will also drop. This can only benefit us and our environment. links Related articles on Singapore: plastic bags More articles on Singapore: general environmental issues |
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