The Singapore government can improve the current societal norm of living wastefully by integrating people of all ages into the conversation of living sustainably. This could be done by making it “cool” to reduce, reuse and recycle among young children and teenagers. Adults can be encouraged to live sustainably by giving them economical benefits to living sustainably such as to pay for food waste or fines for overconsumption leading to waste and not recycling.
The youth in Singapore can play an important role in protecting and improving the environment. They can change their lifestyle and therefore influence how their actions affect the environment. Instead of watching mindless television and playing video games, youth can do some good for the environment with their time. In government schools, there should be classes and workshops to help raise awareness of the current situation of the world. The urgency of the need to change behaviors should be instilled in children from a young age. This can be done through education and exposure to current events that depict climate change and global warming. The pollution that is caused by human actions should be known by the young. This raising of awareness can be done by Ministry of Education (MOE) teachers. They can make their homes, schools and youth organizations more environmentally friendly and eco-friendly by adopting sustainable practices, recycling of different materials as well as preserving resources such as water and electricity (Acharya, 2013). By applying the greening knowledge at home and in schools, we can help to a market city, a greener city to the younger generations. Engaging youth in environmental protection not only creates a direct impact on changing youth behaviors and attitudes but also influences their parents, relatives, and families to follow suit.
Adults must be coerced into living sustainably because the soft approach taken currently by the Singaporean government is no showing results. Recycling rates have dropped and people are still refusing to do their part to reduce their waste, reuse old items and recycle. Thus the best and most effective way to enforce the need to live an environmentally friendly and eco-friendly lifestyle among the adults in Singapore is to introduce economic incentives to live sustainably. In order to reach the goal of zero waste, Singaporean should be made to pay fines for people who do not recycle waste. An example that can be followed by Singapore is France’s mandate that requires large grocery stores to donate all unused, but still edible, food to charity. Not doing so may result in fines and prison time (Collins, 2015). This example can be followed by Singapore to reduce the food wastage. In conclusion, a tougher stance has to be taken to encourage adults to change behaviors. Adults are more likely to be greener if they had an economic incentive to do so such as to avoid fines.
References
Ramchandra Acharya (Jun. 25 2013) Role of Youth for A Cleaner and Greener Environment (Jun. 2013)
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Wales (August. 20 2015) Fines possible for people who do not recycle waste (August. 2015)
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Eliza Collins (May. 22 2015) France food waste law comes with fines and prison time (May. 2015)
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