Singapore looks to Taipei as unlikely model for cleanliness

Want China Times, CNA 2015-01-31

A worker cleans Taipei Main Station, July 24, 2009. (Photo/Chen Chih-yuan)

Singapore is well known for its strict rules intended to keep its streets clean, so it may come as a surprise that activists in the city-state are looking to Taipei as an example of how to maintain a trash-free city.

But Liak Teng Lit, chairman of Singapore's non-governmental Public Hygiene Council, told the Straits Times that his country has "let things deteriorate until we now have a crisis of cleanliness," a reference to the massive amount of trash left strewn about last weekend after a music festival.

In contrast, Liak said that on a recent trip to Taiwan, he and other council members learned that "cleaning is a part of education," adding that it "teaches the value of labor and that it is not shameful to sweat."

He praised Taipei for keeping its streets clean with only 5,000 professional cleaners looking after a city of almost 3 million people, whereas Singapore has a small army of 70,000 cleaners for its population of 5 million.

The praise echoes remarks made by William Wan, co-founder of the Singapore Kindness Movement that works with Liak's organization, who said earlier in the month that trash left after New Year's celebrations showed that Singapore needs to transform from a "cleaned city" to a "clean city."

Revelers who left a "meadow of trash" at the Gardens by the Bay this past weekend told the Straits Times they littered because they saw other people doing it and assumed somebody would come by to collect it.

On Wednesday, Singapore's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong took to Facebook to draw attention to the sad scene left after the Laneway music festival.

"All of us can play a part in picking up our own litter, educating our children and grandchildren, and reminding others to do the right thing," the prime minister wrote.