WASTE MANAGEMENT IN SINGAPORE (WASTE to ENERGY)

 

Singapore has been focusing on the symbiotic relationship between economic prosperity and environmental protection. However Singapore has less and limited land, it drove them to extrapolate on the waste management and they made it imperative when it comes to the environmental protection.  In 2019, Ministry of Environment and water resources started the initiative to turn the Lion city into zero waste economy. Singapore highlighted the problems emanated from the plastic waste and stressed the importance of the circular economy. They believed that they can turn “trash into treasure”.

HOW DOES SINGAPORE MANAGE THEIR WASTE?

It takes 500 years for a plastic bag to disappear from the earth soil. First they collected all the garbage from the trash bags from various places across the country (residential and commercial) and send the whole trash which has been collected, to the incineration buildings to burn them down to ashes. The fire in the incinerators burn throughout the year without any stoppage and the 1000 degrees Celsius heat in the incinerators eat away the trash and generate electricity and lights up thousands of homes as incineration process harness the heat to generate electricity. The fire in the incinerators doesn’t hurt the environment. In a complicated process the smoke released from burning the plastic bags will be filtered and make it so cleaner than the air we breathe. The air released from the chimney is smaller than one micron, which is very clean. With this process 90% of the trash will be disappeared and the rest 10% becomes ash. The management ships the ash to the manmade island where they dump all of it into special water that doesn’t touch ocean water and there ash stays underground forever, it doesn’t affect the coral inside the water, the jungles are green and animals are still around the island.

 Waste- to-Energy (WtE)

Incinerator plants are also known as Waste to energy plants. Water will be converted into steam from the energy recovered from the combustion of waste, this water will be  then converted into high pressure steam in the presence of high temperature  to run turbine generators. 20% is being consumed internally and the rest is being exported to the national grid.

An upcoming waste-to-energy plant built by Mitsubishi Heavy industries and water treatment company Hyflux will be able to incinerate 3600 tonnes of waste per day while generating electricity to be self-sufficient and providing excess power to the national grid.

In 2020, about 5.88 million tonnes of solid waste was generated, of which 3.04 million tonnes was recycled. Waste generated by the non-domestic and domestic sectors both saw a reduction in 2020 – from 5.37 million tonnes and 1.87 million tonnes respectively in 2019, to 4.12 million tonnes and 1.76 million tonnes in 2020.

Singapore witnessed a reduction in overall waste generation for the fourth consecutive year since 2017, resulting in less waste being sent to Semakau Landfill.

It has been difficult for the Singapore to manage the waste systematically and by 2035; even the manmade island semakau landfill will no longer be enough to ship the ashes into the special water. It is showing the Government, a way to embark on various waste management practices. Singapore is trying every possible way to increase the recycling rate.

As every citizen contributes to waste generation, everyone should take part in reducing waste for a cleaner and greener environment. Many countries are following the footsteps of Singapore’s waste management techniques. The only way to achieve this to the fullest is to adopt 3R method; Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.  

Author Details:

Name: Gauri Varshney

Batch:  2021-23

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gauri-varshney-885091170