Japanese Expats Spend Hours Clearing Trash In S’pore, Praised For Keeping Our City Clean

Japanese Expats In Singapore Clear Up Trash Across Various Locations

Singapore is reputedly one of the cleanest countries in the world. Even so, we still have quite a bit of room for improvement when it comes to keeping our neighbourhood clean.

Recently, a group of Japanese expats decided to spend a day clearing up trash around several areas here.

The expats did their cleaning at three different locations — East Coast Park, Chinatown, and the Japanese Garden.

Japanese expats clearing trash in East Coast Park

Ghib Ojisan, a YouTuber, posted an 11-minute long video on 11 Feb whereby a group of Japanese expats cleared up trash across Singapore.

The video starts with the expats gathering in a group, eager to start clearing the area.

Armed with umbrellas for the rainy weather and poles for picking the rubbish up, they were more than ready to start the day.

Starting off in East Coast Park, the expats collected over five buckets’ worth of trash.

Among them were various interesting — and dangerous — bits of garbage, including an abandoned wallet, a needle, and even a razor blade and syringe.

Even though they picked up plenty of trash, one of the expats admitted that Singapore was probably cleaner than her hometown, Yokohama.

Expats share thoughts on living in Singapore

Cleaning wasn’t the only activity they engaged in, however — the expats also spoke with Ghib Ojisan, sharing their experiences living in Singapore.

A number of them revealed a staggering amount of expenses per month, coming up to S$10,000 for one woman.

They said this was a result of rising rental costs as well as the need to look after their family.

Despite the steep cost of living, however, they weren’t too unhappy about staying in Singapore.

One man praised the mix of cultures in Singapore, while another woman commended the safe streets of the country which was “great for raising kids”.

A high amount of trash in Chinatown

Moving on to Chinatown, the expats were hard at work cleaning the wet markets and back alleys. Despite the heat and the considerable amount of trash, they did their best to clear up the area.

“It’s really pretty non-stop trash,” Ghib Ojisan shared helplessly.

At one point, they bravely ventured into the toilets as well — before giving them up as a lost cause.

Fortunately, their efforts did not go to waste, with the streets of Chinatown looking much cleaner by the time they were done.

The last location of the day was the Japanese Cemetery Park. While clean for the most part, the ground was littered with numerous dead leaves.

After two hours, the amount gathered was enough to fill several garbage bags.

Singaporeans urged to do their part

Ghib Ojisan shared that the group collected 10kg to 25kg worth of trash. But he also said continuing to clean would be fruitless, as with each passing day, the amount of garbage gathered would increase.

He urged Singaporeans to thus do their part in keeping the city clean.

For instance, he suggested volunteering like the expats or donating as much as possible to organisations looking after the environment.

Kudos to Ghib and his fellow expats for doing their part in clearing the trash here. Hopefully, this will serve as a reminder for the rest of us to do our part in keeping Singapore clean too.

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Featured image adapted from Ghib Ojisan on YouTube.