Singapore Recycling Rate 1996 to 2023
Under Singapore’s Zero Waste Masterplan, we aim to increase the national overall recycling rate to 70 per cent and reduce waste-to-landfill per capita per day by 30 per cent by 2030.
The 2023 overall recycling rate was 52.0%. We need a massive leap of 18% in the remaining 6 years to Dec 2030.- this hasn’t been achieved ever before.
That’s not going to happen for a good number of reasons.
The top graph shows our recycling rate from 1996 to 2023. The curve fit has a correlation of 0.9554
The lower graph shows a five year running average showing a recycling rate of 60.1% in the period 2011-2015. The highest achieved was 61.5% in 2013.
– Waste generation per capita corelates with economic growth and waste generation will grow.
– We import almost everything. We manufacture or process and then export goods/services but the wastes produced CANNOT be exported.
– We need a massive mindset change and efforts to reduce wastes.
– The waste management industry faces constraints on manpower, facilities and right experiences along with growing overheads.
– We need more doers than talkers.
No ideas are radical. Let’s work together.
