Green neighbourhood. Not.

On June 25, 2008 · 9 Comments · In Living

Here in Sin­ga­pore, we send our trash over­seas — Photo by Where is Clif­ford The Big Red Dog?

I asked our apart­ment block’s cleaner where the recy­cle bins were and he said there weren’t any. Just chuck every­thing into the big wheelie bin, he said.

What made me sicker was a friend of ours telling me he saw his neighbourhood’s rub­bish truck dump every­thing from their block’s recy­cle bins into the same truck as the other reg­u­lar rubbish.

I would like to think that the pri­vate com­pany that col­lects our trash for a monthly fee has some super-duper sys­tem at their trash depot that does the sort­ing for us, but it is hard to give any­one the ben­e­fit of doubt these days.

My flu-induced headache was exac­er­bated by research­ing “green cars” over the week­end, try­ing to find out if the car­bon foot­print of a CNG car was sig­nif­i­cantly less than that of a con­ven­tional one, and how many CNG dis­pens­ing sta­tions there were in the coun­try besides the three in very far flung parts of the island which require a CNG car owner to use up a sig­nif­i­cant amount of gas just to get to.

The flu med­ica­tion does stave off some of the gluggy feel­ing, but it doesn’t stop me from being deliri­ous enough to think about such things as the total square footage of all the rooftops of all the HDB blocks in the coun­try, and how many solar pan­els can be fit­ted on them.

I think the good peo­ple at HDB and NEA would have thought of it already, with or with­out the flu. Then again…

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  • yongwei92

    u moved overseas?

  • http://www.miyagi.sg Mr Miyagi

    Don’t be rude.

  • yongwei92

    nono, i mean really,cause you showed a photo of air plane,so i’m wondering.

  • http://www.starbamboo.com Hun Boon

    Hi,

    So how goes the CNG car research?

    From what I’ve read, CNG is only 20% cleaner than petrol in terms of CO2 emis­sion. The mileage isn’t great, you get about 90-120km per tank (which is heavy and low­ers your economy).

    The only proper CNG sta­tion on Sin­ga­pore main­land is at Mandai. Unless you stay or work around there, it won’t make sense to drive all the way to fill up. If you stay in Pasir Ris, the tank would be half empty by the time you get home from the station!

    So, in the end you will use petrol most of the time, and the CNG tank becomes a white ele­phant. Reg­is­ter­ing a CNG car enti­tles you to the hybrid car tax ben­e­fits, but do keep in mind you’ll get back less when you even­tu­ally scrap your car.

    A hybrid car like Prius is a bet­ter choice, but I would buy a diesel myself. When I change my car in a few years, I believe the diesel tax would no longer be prohibitive.

    Hope this helps. :)

  • lin­coln

    For­get CNG because there’s not enough fill­ing sta­tions…http://www.cng.com.sg/cng.html Open­ing soon does not nec­es­sar­ily mean it’s open­ing soon. Like some MRT sta­tions we know.

    Full elec­tric cars won’t be allowed into Sin­ga­pore because there are no charg­ing sta­tions and the Gov­ern­ment can­not earn suf­fi­cient petrol tax off you. But they will still get you on the ERP and road tax. My choice would be the tesla of course http://www.teslamotors.com/

    Diesel is a good choice and I hear they might be bring­ing in some to Sin­ga­pore. I hear Sub­aru has an excel­lent diesel http://www.boxerdiesel.com/en/index.html or if you got some cash to burn.. http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressne…

    Right now… your best bet would be a Hybrid. The Toy­ota Prius or the Honda Civic Hybrid. Both are excel­lent cars. I tend to the Honda because it looks like a nor­mal car. For the fam­i­lies, the Estima Hybrid has just launched their lat­est Hybrid tech­nol­ogy for the Estima… par­al­lel imported of course (make sure you are get­ting the E-four ones http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/news/06/0612_2.html). And for the HK movie star wannabe, the Alphard Hybrid http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/news/06/0612_2.html.

    I am hop­ing for the Diesel Hybrids but I guess I have to wait a lit­tle longer.

    Another thought would be this lit­tle baby… http://www.efuel100.com/ make your own fuel add it to your tank every morn­ing an go. it’s sim­ple… only prob­lem there are not many 100% ethanol cars in the world and none in Sin­ga­pore, else this would be cool alternative.

    and finally

    Get a bike like Kin Mun, extra change of clothes and you are good to go.

  • http://thisauntieblogstoo.wordpress.com/ aun­tieblog

    You are not alone… I take a bus every 2 weeks or so with my recy­clable trash to throw them in the recy­cling bins at the near­est HDB estate. I won­der all the time if my efforts are worth it.

  • http://www.starbamboo.com Hun Boon

    Hi,

    So how goes the CNG car research?

    From what I’ve read, CNG is only 20% cleaner than petrol in terms of CO2 emis­sion. The mileage isn’t great, you get about 90-120km per tank (which is heavy and low­ers your economy).

    The only proper CNG sta­tion on Sin­ga­pore main­land is at Mandai. Unless you stay or work around there, it won’t make sense to drive all the way to fill up. If you stay in Pasir Ris, the tank would be half empty by the time you get home from the station!

    So, in the end you will use petrol most of the time, and the CNG tank becomes a white ele­phant. Reg­is­ter­ing a CNG car enti­tles you to the hybrid car tax ben­e­fits, but do keep in mind you’ll get back less when you even­tu­ally scrap your car.

    A hybrid car like Prius is a bet­ter choice, but I would buy a diesel myself. When I change my car in a few years, I believe the diesel tax would no longer be prohibitive.

    Hope this helps. :)

  • lin­coln

    For­get CNG because there’s not enough fill­ing sta­tions…http://www.cng.com.sg/cng.html Open­ing soon does not nec­es­sar­ily mean it’s open­ing soon. Like some MRT sta­tions we know.

    Full elec­tric cars won’t be allowed into Sin­ga­pore because there are no charg­ing sta­tions and the Gov­ern­ment can­not earn suf­fi­cient petrol tax off you. But they will still get you on the ERP and road tax. My choice would be the tesla of course http://www.teslamotors.com/

    Diesel is a good choice and I hear they might be bring­ing in some to Sin­ga­pore. I hear Sub­aru has an excel­lent diesel http://www.boxerdiesel.com/en/index.html or if you got some cash to burn.. http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressne…

    Right now… your best bet would be a Hybrid. The Toy­ota Prius or the Honda Civic Hybrid. Both are excel­lent cars. I tend to the Honda because it looks like a nor­mal car. For the fam­i­lies, the Estima Hybrid has just launched their lat­est Hybrid tech­nol­ogy for the Estima… par­al­lel imported of course (make sure you are get­ting the E-four ones http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/news/06/0612_2.html). And for the HK movie star wannabe, the Alphard Hybrid http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/news/06/0612_2.html.

    I am hop­ing for the Diesel Hybrids but I guess I have to wait a lit­tle longer.

    Another thought would be this lit­tle baby… http://www.efuel100.com/ make your own fuel add it to your tank every morn­ing an go. it’s sim­ple… only prob­lem there are not many 100% ethanol cars in the world and none in Sin­ga­pore, else this would be cool alternative.

    and finally

    Get a bike like Kin Mun, extra change of clothes and you are good to go.

  • http://thisauntieblogstoo.wordpress.com/ aun­tieblog

    You are not alone… I take a bus every 2 weeks or so with my recy­clable trash to throw them in the recy­cling bins at the near­est HDB estate. I won­der all the time if my efforts are worth it.

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