Tampines, the largest residential town in Singapore, plans to expand a pilot program that converts waste into compost and water to the whole town by 2024, as reported by Strait Times on April 9. In January 2020, Tampines’s town council installed a food waste digestor at a neighborhood center in Tampines West, which helps six local merchants process up to 400 kilograms of food waste per day and break it down into fertilizer and water using microbes. Processing food waste at its source has a lower carbon footprint and lower costs compared to transporting waste to larger processing plants, according to a member of parliament from Tampines.

Singapore generated 665,000 tons of food waste in 2020, down 11% from the 744,000 tons generated in 2019. On the other hand, the city-state has gradually raised its food waste recycling rate from 13% in 2015 to 19% in 2020. In October 2019, the country enacted the Resource Sustainability Act (RSA) which mandated on-site food waste treatment systems in new large commercial and industrial premises from 2021. The RSA also demands that large commercial and industrial food waste generators segregate their food waste for treatment from 2024. Under Singapore’s plan toward a zero-waste nation, the country aims to increase the overall recycling rate to 70% and reduce waste-to-landfill per capita per day by 30% by 2030.

Sources:

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/environment/pilot-to-turn-food-waste-into-fertiliser-to-be-expanded-across-tampines-by-2024

https://www.nea.gov.sg/our-services/waste-management/3r-programmes-and-resources/food-waste-management

https://www.towardszerowaste.gov.sg/zero-waste-nation/

https://www.nea.gov.sg/integrated-sustainability-report-2020-2021/review-of-fy2020/ensuring-a-clean-and-sustainable-environment-for-singapore/sustainable-and-resource-efficient-singapore