SINGAPORE – The National Environment Agency (NEA) has issued 125 enforcement tickets for public health offences such as littering, smoking in prohibited areas and spitting in public areas over three days of enforcement blitzes from May 3 to May 6.
The number of these enforcement exercises has been increased from 21 in 2023 to more than 100 in 2024, said Mr Mulyadi Ahmad, deputy director of NEA’s enforcement department at the sanitation and compliance division.
This is part of the agency’s stepped-up measures planned for the year, after the Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment (MSE) designated 2024 to be the Year of Public Hygiene.
Speaking at the debate on MSE’s budget on March 4, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and the Environment Baey Yam Keng said the amount of feedback on ground littering increased by about 15 per cent from 2022 to 2023 compared with the two years before the Covid-19 pandemic.
And based on cleanliness surveys, Mr Baey said many Singaporeans still believe that the responsibility to keep Singapore clean lies with the Government and “our army of cleaners”.
He hoped that Singaporeans would be more civic-minded and not add to the cleaners’ workload by leaving litter for them to clean up.
To tackle this persistent issue of littering, NEA will increase the frequency and scale of anti-littering enforcement blitzes.
More closed-circuit television cameras will also be deployed by NEA at littering hot spots, from around 250 per year to 1,000 a year.
Standees will be placed at the hot spots to remind the public that the area is under active surveillance and will reflect the number of people fined for littering at the location.
Littering hot spots such as Causeway Point are determined based on public and officers’ feedback on where littering is common, added Mr Mulyadi.
When The Straits Times shadowed a group of NEA enforcement officers during a blitz on May 3 at Causeway Point in Woodlands, two individuals were issued enforcement tickets for smoking in prohibited areas.
But no littering offences were witnessed after multiple rounds of walking around the mall.
These operations, which last five to six hours, are aimed at establishing the officers’ presence and make it clear that there are officers around, said Mr Mulyadi during an interview on the sidelines of the blitz.
Enforcement officers also travelled in a group of eight and wore bright green armbands that clearly identified them as NEA enforcement officers.
“We hope with the sustained enforcement presence, we will be able to deter non-compliance and public health offences,” said Mr Mulyadi.
Corrective Work Orders, which require littering offenders to clean public areas for a minimum of three hours, will be conducted at hot spots, he added.
“The majority of Singaporeans keep their waste responsibly, but the minority persist in littering, and therefore it is imperative for us to take action so that we can convey the message that littering is not acceptable and will not be tolerated.”
