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Singapore and the recycling of plastic

Singapore goes through 1.76 billion plastic items a year, recycles less than 20%

Singapore uses at least 1.76 billion plastic items a year - or almost one plastic item per person per day - but less than 20 per cent is recycled, according to survey results announced by the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) on Tuesday (July 31).
In a survey of more than 1,000 people online, the non-governmental organisation found that people in Singapore take 820 million plastic bags yearly from supermarkets.
Only 2 per cent of these supermarket plastic bags were recycled by consumers.

Two-thirds were used for the disposal of waste.

The six-month SEC study, undertaken with the help of global consultancy Deloitte, also found that Singapore used 467 million polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles a year and 473 million plastic disposable items like takeaway containers.
Less than 20 per cent of these items are recycled.
The study did not include plastic bags given out by places other than supermarkets.
A council spokesman said: "We wanted to measure something people could accurately recall and measure.
Most people can estimate the number of plastic bags they use on each supermarket shopping trip, while it may be harder for them to recall how many bags they use from all sources in a week or month."