KEEPING OUR ENVIRONMENT CLEAN IN HDB ESTATES & PUBLIC TOILETS

I am sure many Singaporeans would agree with me that we can do much better in keeping our environment clean. I decided to raise this issue in my cut speech during the MSE COS Debate. I was glad to note from Minister Grace Fu’s response that cleanliness will be an emphasis area for MSE this year. MSE’s enforcement and education outreach efforts will be increased to help send a strong message that cleanliness is a joint responsibility and we must treat the environment in the same way as we treat our homes. My cut speech is set out below.

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In November 2023, SMU published an article on its study on the cleanliness of public toilets in hawker centres and coffeeshops entitled “Public Toilets as Dirty as in 2020”.

The study, which was done by 170 SMU undergrads visiting 2,200 public toilets, concluded that whilst there have been improvements at the hawker centres compared to 2020, Singaporeans conveyed that more should be done to improve toilet sanitation at coffee shops.

In HDB Housing Estates, we often see irresponsible cases of littering and dumping amongst residents. They expect the poor town council cleaners, who already have heavy workloads, to clean after them. This is unfair.

For a first world country like Singapore, we can certainly do better.

How do we ingrain in Singaporeans the message that cleanliness is a joint responsibility amongst all of us? How can we improve the cleanliness outcomes in our estates and public toilets.