Rubbish Made Beautiful, the Singapore way.

Continuation from yesterday's post...

Ash from mainland Singapore is shipped here into this building on Semakau Landfill.



They are then loaded into trucks that will then fill up the cells you saw yesterday. All these yukky stuff are our rubbish!



But the rubbish island can be made into a recreation area!
Our tour guide, who is the NEA staff giving us educational tours.



Some of the people who joined in the education tour. You would not believe that this is a landfill right?



This is what the NEA staff told us, is the golden chain of Semakau. It's used to prevent boats going into this area.

What was interesting here is that it was low tide, and the water from this man made lagoon is draining out. At the same time, waves are coming in. But current from the water draining is stronger.



If you are interested to visit this place, you can contact these interest groups:
- Sport Fishing Association of Singapore (sport fishing) at http://www.sfas.net
- Nature Society of Singapore (bird watching) at htts://www.nss.org.sg
- Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research (RMBR) at http://rmbr.nus.edu.sg

Singapore's island that's made of rubbish.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go visit a landfill as part of the activities for Clean and Green Singapore.

Brief introduction for today's post:
Rubbish and various waste in Singapore are collected by the authorised contractors and incinerated in the various incinerator plants around Singapore. The residue of that process is ash. The ash is then transported to Semakau Landfill to be dumped.


Here are some excerpts from the Signboards there:
The Semakau Landfill is Singapore's only landfill for waste disposal. It covers a total area of 350 hectares and has a landfill capacity of 63 million m cube. To create the landfill space, a 7-km perimeter bund was built to enclose a part of the sea off Pulau Semakau and Pulau Sakeng. It was commissioned in April 1999.

The project is divided into Phase 1 and 2. Phase 1 is then divided into different cells. The cells will be utilized one by one by draining off the water.



The building you see below is where we arrive after taking a 15 min ferry ride from the Pasir Panjang Ferry Terminal. You can see the "You are here" on the photo above. It's the main administrative building on this partially natural and partially man made island. We were at the conference room in this building listening to how the whole project is about and what we can do to reduce waste.



We were brought around in a mini bus and a mini van. This is what we saw from inside the vehicle. The grass and shrubs you see are actually one of the cells that have been filled up and grass and plants planted on it. Below them are our rubbish!

Rubbish are incinerated first so that it is only 10% of its original volume. Thus making it easier to transport and also making this landfill last longer. It is suppose to last for 45 years.



Part of the 7km bund that surrounds the man made landfill. The NEA Staff was joking to us, the Singapore Grand Prix can be held here! There's a 7 km bund with a very scenic view too!



More photos tomorrow.

Reflection time:
How much rubbish do you throw away? Do you buy things that come in less packaging? Do you reuse and recycle rather than throw things away?