Singapore’s Only Landfill
Most of the world’s landfills look like rubbish. However, Singapore innovatively created a way to safely and sustainably dispose of their waste without making it look so unappealing.
Written by Alina Ho
In highly populated areas such as Los Angeles and New York, one of the major concerns (other than air pollution) is landfill. The more densely populated an area is, the more waste gets produced and the less space there is to dump it. In fact, the average household in the UK produces over a ton of waste every year. Believe it or not, our environment is quite impacted by the way we dispose of our trash. Some composting is good for the environment and is great for nourishing soil for homegrown plants. However, the majority of the world’s trash is neither recycled nor composted. Most of the world’s trash is dumped into landfills.
Landfills are areas where household and commercial rubbish are disposed of. Most of this trash is naturally broken down at slower rates than we would expect- partly because some rubbish is harder to break down when it doesn’t interact with other materials (such as brick or concrete) and because large piles of heavy trash trap out oxygen, preventing food products from decaying at a faster rate. Additionally, decaying matter tends to produce weakly acidic chemicals that form toxic landfill gas. These toxins eventually leach into soil and groundwater systems which could be unsafe for us and could potentially impact existing ecosystems when nearby scavengers ingest this toxic trash. In addition, poorer communities face the most repercussions. In particular, impoverished neighborhoods do not have proper waste management in place; therefore, trash gets dumped in the middle of their communities, exposing them to unsafe matter and puts them at risk for developing diseases and other illnesses. Another way that trash is disposed of is incineration. But when the trash is burned, what about the mass amounts of carbon dioxide that is produced? Wouldn’t this worsen global warming instead of fight against it?
A prime example we can look up to is Singapore’s way they deal with their increase in the amount of trash they produce. Singapore is a highly populated area like Los Angeles and New York City, so this problem is precedent. Other nations could definitely learn from how Singapore deals with its trash in a healthy and sustainable fashion.
Singapore has only one landfill, Semakau Island, which is also a beautiful notorious tourist spot. How did they do it? Singapore incinerates its trash to reduce it by 90% of its original volume and filters out the air from these combustion processes before it is released back into the atmosphere. Some of the steam is even used up by turbines to generate electricity. Then this ash is taken on a ferry to Semakau. Home to more than 700 species of animals (including healthy coral reefs), the ash is dumped, and some is used to nourish the soil. This island has a water source that is secluded from the rest of the ocean; when the water overflows from the ashes or rainwater, it is filtered before the water gets released through pipes into the ocean. In addition, Singapore has been converting this ash into something called new sand, which can then be used to pave roads or substitute concrete. Amazing right?
Singapore has not only made performative efforts on its landfill, but they have a green plan that involves changing to modes of cleaner energy, reducing their waste, and strengthening their food security by growing their own. These are really interesting topics to check out, but if I went on about each and every plan they decided to implement, this blog post would be ten pages long. So, if you want to lean more on their global action plan, feel free to check out their websites linked here: Singapore Green Plan 2030 Sustainability in Singapore | Home
Humans can’t not produce waste, and this is an objective fact. We can fight against this global problem by minimizing the amount of waste we produce. Of course, there are many other pressing problems that we should be more aware of, but Singapore makes it all seem doable.
References
What is a landfill? Why are landfills bad for the environment? | Unisan UK
Watch How Singapore Builds an Island Made from Trash | Singapore OFW
How Singapore fixed its big trash problem | CNBC Reports - Bing video