Article below is from the Straits Times, Singapore (11 May 2010)
By Victoria Vaughan
PUB's eye-catching stickers bring home the message - drains lead to reservoirs. -- ST PHOTO: MUGILAN RAJASEGERAN
DESPITE harsher penalties and numerous anti-littering campaigns, 14 tonnes of rubbish - equal to the weight of 10 cars - ends up in Singapore's drains every day.
A cigarette butt thrown into a drain in Bishan, for example, can travel 10km to the Marina Bay reservoir, which, by the end of the year, will provide 10 per cent of the Republic's water.
This is the message that colourful campaign stickers placed on 49 drains across Singapore hope to spread - the drains beneath your feet lead to reservoirs, so don't use them as bins.
PUB, the national water agency, launched the Wonderful World of Water yesterday, with stickers being placed on and around drains in Tampines, Bishan, Jurong and the Environment Building at Newton, as a pilot project to get reactions from the public prior to launching an art competition for drain covers on May 21.
Every year, more than 5,000 tonnes of rubbish are collected from the 32 rivers and 7,000km of drains in Singapore. It costs the PUB $4.5 million a year to clean up the Marina catchment area, which is the largest and most urbanised, covering approximately one-sixth of Singapore's land area.
This amount of litter, however, went down by a tonne last year compared with the previous year, and PUB believes it is due to the enforcement efforts of the National Environment Agency (NEA).
