Volunteers will soon be able to summon litterbugs if the new amendment is passed
Potential and current litterbugs beware — your next door neighbour might just be the next litterbug buster watching you, waiting for you to drop that piece of tissue before she writes you a summon.
National Environment Agency (NEA) might soon be able to appoint their fellow volunteers as auxiliary officers to issue summons to those doing foul things like not throwing their rubbish properly in the bin.
Right now, there are 250 volunteers who are the eyes and ears on the ground, spotting litterbugs.
They are trained by NEA to take down the particulars of the offenders and then pass the information to the authorities but they cannot issue the summon themselves. If the proposed changes are accepted, the volunteers will be more empowered to take charge of the situation.
Litter, litter everywhere
It is no secret that littering in Singapore is going out of control.
Singapore gave out 26,000 littering fines in 2015, the highest number in the last six years and 7 out of 10 of those caught were Singaporean citizens.
On 10 Jan, a 60-year-old man was arrested after he threw more than 10 items from his HDB flat in Boon Keng, including items like flower pots, an electrical rice cooker and even a shopping trolley. He damaged three cars with his reckless behaviour, a Toyota, Mitsubishi and Volkswagen.
Also earlier this year, the annual indie festival Laneway Festival was flooded with rubbish despite being called out for it by the PM last year.
Aftermath of Laneway 2016
Source
PM chided festival goers back in 2015 for not cleaning up after themselves.
As our PM said: We need to progress from being a cleaned city to a truly clean city. Looks like we probably do need drastic measures like litterbug summon volunteers before we clean up our act.
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With reference to The Straits Times, The Straits Times , Channel NewsAsia
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