ENVIRONMENTAL PUBLIC HEALTH (AMENDMENT) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for the Environment (Mr Yeo Cheow Tong): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Singapore is well known as a clean and green city. Tropical diseases are kept at bay, food is safe, and our environment is clean. We have achieved our high standard of public health by investing wisely in environmental infrastructure, conducting public education, and enforcing strictly the environmental laws.

Over the years, our population has become more aware of the need to protect the environment. However, there are still some who, despite our campaigns and urging, persist in acting irresponsibly. They litter and dirty public places, indiscriminately discard their unwanted possessions or waste, and sometimes do great damage to the environment.

As we live in a very densely populated country, our living environment can deteriorate very quickly if we are not careful. We cannot tolerate irresponsible acts that damage or pollute our environment. While we continue to educate the public, we must also ensure that we have penalties that will strongly deter those who continue to act irresponsibly.

As Singapore becomes more built up, construction activities are increasingly located nearer to existing residential estates. A construction site, if not managed carefully, can become a source of nuisance and even public health hazards to residents and workers living and working nearby. A better-educated population also expects a higher standard of housekeeping in construction sites.

Contractors must therefore take appropriate steps to minimise nuisance to residents. The Bill will require contractors of construction sites to engage qualified Environmental Control Officers (ECOs) to help them keep the sites clean and free of nuisance or public health hazards.

The proposed amendments to the Environmental Public Health Act will allow my Ministry to better address these and other emerging concerns on environmental public health.

Sir, I shall now highlight the main amendments and new provisions in this Bill.

Illegal Dumping

Illegal dumping of waste, mainly from construction sites, is becoming a major problem and has to be checked immediately. Not only is it happening more often, the culprits are getting bolder too. Whereas in the past, they used to dump the waste only in remote parts of Singapore, they are now daring enough to dump even in built-up areas. The indications are that the illegal dumping activities are now more organised, and much larger in scale.

Because they normally operate late at night, and in deserted areas, it is not easy to catch the offenders in the act. But when we do, we must duly punish them with penalties that adequately fit the crime. This will be achieved in the amendments before us in this Bill.

Clause 4 provides for the Court to grant the application made by the Public Prosecutor for a vehicle to be forfeited, when it is proven that the vehicle has been used for illegal dumping. Clause 5 increases the maximum fine to $50,000 from the existing $10,000, for the first conviction. Second and subsequent convictions will result in a maximum fine of $100,000, and imprisonment for a term of not less than one month and not more than 12 months.

Clause 14 empowers the Commissioner of Public Health to call up for questioning any person suspected to be involved in illegal dumping, or in the operation of an unlicensed dumping ground. This will empower ENV officers to conduct thorough investigations and bring the offending parties to court.

Operating an Illegal Dump Site

To prevent any person from attempting to operate an illegal dump site under the guise of operating a waste recycling plant, clause 2 has included "recycling plant" in the definition of "disposal facility". This will enable the Commissioner of Public Health to license all recycling plants under section 23 (1) of the Act.

Under clause 8, any person found operating an illegal disposal site can be fined up to $50,000 or imprisoned for a term not exceeding 12 months or both for the first conviction. For the second and subsequent convictions, the penalties are a fine of up to $100,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or both. The previous maximum penalties were a $10,000 fine or 12 months imprisonment or both, for first or subsequent convictions.

Littering

At present, a Corrective Works Order (CWO) for littering offences is issued in lieu of a fine. The number of littering cases has been increasing in recent years and so has the number of repeat offenders, some of whom had done corrective work previously. The CWO, on its own, is therefore not a sufficient deterrent.

Littering is an anti-social habit, one that should not be difficult to give up. It is fundamentally a question of attitude. We have had decades of public education, and the majority of Singaporeans have responded favourably. Unfortunately, there is a hardcore minority who are indifferent to littering, and who need to be deterred by heavier penalties. Under clauses 5, 6 and 7, the penalties for littering have been revised as follows:

(a) the CWO may now be imposed by the Court in addition to fines, instead of only in lieu of;

(b) the maximum duration for CWO is increased from 3 hours to 12 hours. Offenders can now be made to perform CWO on more than one day; and

(c) while the maximum fine for the first and second convictions remain unchanged at $1,000 and $2,000 respectively, the maximum fine for the third and subsequent convictions will be increased to $5,000.

Clause 3 makes it an offence to discard or abandon any furniture, any deregistered vehicles or any other bulky items in any public place. The penalties will be a maximum fine of $5,000 for the first conviction and $10,000 or 3 months' jail or both for the second or subsequent convictions.

Environmental Control Officers

Let me now move on to the provision for the appointment of Environmental Control Officers. Poor housekeeping and management of construction work-sites have often given rise to public health hazards, such as the breeding of mosquitoes and flies, rodent infestation, disease outbreaks, earth littering, dust nuisance and noise pollution. With construction sites now located increasingly closer to residential areas, contractors must actively ensure that their site activities do not give rise to public health problems.

Clause 10 will require the occupier of any construction site with construction projects worth more than a specified value to engage qualified Environmental Control Officers (ECOs) on a full-time or part-time basis. The role of the ECO is to help plan and monitor environmental control measures on the site. My Ministry will register and certify such qualified persons after they have attended a prescribed training course and pass the pre-requisite examinations.

The current pool of safety officers, currently certified by the Ministry of Manpower, may expand their expertise to include environmental management. They will need to undergo the necessary training and be certified as ECOs. In this way, a contractor needs to only employ one officer on site to perform the dual role of safety control and environmental control. Suitably qualified persons who are not currently registered as safety officers can also become ECOs. My Ministry will ensure that there will be sufficient numbers of ECOs to serve the industry when we launch the scheme.

Recycling Burial Plots

Clause 11 empowers the Commissioner to order the exhumation of graves for the purposes of reusing the grave plots for future burials. This is necessary as we have very limited burial land. Without this measure, the existing burial land will be completely exhausted within 14 years.

Sir, as Singapore continues to develop and progress, our peoples' expectations of their living environment will increase. The challenge of safeguarding our environment and public health can be successfully met only with the cooperation of everyone in Singapore. My Ministry will continue to educate the public, and actively seek their understanding, support and cooperation. At the same time, we will deter the recalcitrants with penalties that are more appropriate to the offences committed. This Bill will enable my Ministry to deal with new public health problems more effectively, and help keep Singapore clean and green.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Ang Mong Seng (Bukit Gombak): (In Mandarin): According to information given by the Ministry of the Environment, in 1998, a total of 8,652 summonses were issued for littering offences. Compared to the 5,152 summonses in 1997, there has been an increase of almost 3,500. In 1998, there were about 580 people who were served with the CWO as opposed to the 376 in 1997. If these figures are in reference to the shares market, many people would have made a lot of money.

But now, there are so many people who are flouting the law. This is a very disturbing trend. This will undermine our image and reputation as one of the cleanest cities in the world. The Minister has introduced this Amendment Bill to enhance the fine and increase the number of hours for the Corrective Work Orders (CWO). I think this is very timely. I support this Bill.

Mr Speaker, Sir, if we want to have a more effective way to maintain Singapore's reputation as the most beautiful and cleanest city in the world, enhancing the penalties is just one of the ways, albeit an important and effective way. However, we should also enhance our educational efforts so that our people will learn to keep our environment clean. I would like to make a few suggestions.

First, education in the schools. Our National Education has already achieved some good results. Otherwise, our environment would have been worse and more people would have been fined. Through education in the schools, we have inculcated in our students the concept of keeping our environment clean. The Ministry of Education should enhance its efforts in this direction so that the younger generation of citizens will make consistent efforts to keep Singapore clean. However, I feel that we should have more creative ways to educate our students.

Let me give you an example. On one occasion a couple of months ago, while I was standing at the roadside waiting for my grassroots leaders to drive me to a function, I saw two young children, presumably a sister and a brother, crossing the road. The younger brother was kicking an empty can. The elder sister said, "Why don't you pick up the empty tin instead of kicking it around?" The younger brother said, "I did not throw it. Why should I pick it up?" Although it was suggested that the empty tin be picked up, the children did not do so. In the end, it was the Member of Parliament who picked up the tin and threw it into the rubbish bin.

I feel that we should start teaching our children about environmental protection from young. In our younger days, we had lessons in civics. We were told to use our hands and participate in some gotong royong campaigns. We should also educate our students not only to refrain from littering, but also to help pick up the litter and dispose of it in the proper manner. Then, Singapore will become an even cleaner city.

Secondly, in the food centres. We all know that nowadays many families have their lunches and dinners in the food centres because both husband and wife are working and have no time to cook for the family. I think the hygiene and cleanliness of the food centres is very important. But very often, we observe that in the food centres, the stallholders would collect their plates and money, and with a swipe of the cloth, push all the food remains on to the ground. I think this is a very bad habit, and their hygiene standard is still very unsatisfactory.

Perhaps we could have a National Food Centre Cleanliness Contest, where the three cleanest food centres in Singapore be picked and awarded. I think through this effort, we could encourage the stallholders to pay more attention to their hygiene and cleanliness, and thereby creating a better environment for our people.

Thirdly, foreign workers. At present, in Singapore, we have a few hundred thousands of foreign workers in Singapore because of the needs in the construction and manufacturing sectors. We have foreign workers coming from Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, China and India. They came from different cultural backgrounds. Perhaps they have different habits and different standards of hygiene in their countries. I often see in some HDB worksites these foreign workers eating at the void decks of the nearby HDB flats, and leaving behind empty containers and empty tins on the ground after they had finished eating. They said the food leftovers were for the stray dogs and cats, and they love them. This would certainly cause some health hazard to the residents there.

I suggest that all contractors should take up the responsibility of educating the foreign workers. I feel that this is not the mistake of the workers themselves. It is just the habits that they have inherited from their own country. I think we should educate them in order to make them understand that these old habits of theirs are not to be tolerated in our environment.

Fourthly, junk mail. The Town Councils have employed cleaners to clean up the common areas in our HDB estates, and the standard of cleanliness has generally improved. However, we still find that there are a lot of junk mails being thrown about near the letter boxes. I have taken some photographs. We can see that at noon time and at about 5.00 pm, the area at the lift lobby near the letter boxes was very clean. But by 6 pm, that area was heavily littered with a lot of junk mails, commercial handbills and leaflets. We have about 8,000 blocks of HDB flats in Singapore. If we want to clear up all these junk mails from HDB flats, it would cost about $1 per block of flats. So, we have to spend $8,000 a day, $240,000 a month or $2.88 million a year. This is indeed a huge sum of money.

Perhaps these companies which distribute or send out these handbills and leaflets should go around the HDB estates and see for themselves how wasteful it is to send out all these leaflets which end up as litters on the floor. Meanwhile, the Town Councils should improve the design of the letter boxes. I sincerely hope that if these companies want to advertise, they should do it through other means, rather than dumping all these leaflets into the letter boxes of residents, causing a lot of littering problems, and a lot of money to clean them up.

Finally, as raised by Mr Heng Chiang Meng in Parliament last year, we should look into the possibility of authorising members of the public to help enforce the regulations. Recently, I visited Gulangyu in the Fujian province. On this island, there are no vehicles and it is a pollution free island. When I was there, I noticed that many senior citizens, who were wearing some red banners on their bodies, issuing summonses to anyone who littered, and even collecting fines from the offenders on-the-spot. I think this is a very effective way of controlling the environment. On the one hand, we can keep the senior citizens and retirees occupied, and let them earn some money for themselves, and on the other hand, they could take up the responsibility to make sure that no one litters. If anyone should litter, they are authorised to issue summonses to these people and also to fine them on the spot. I feel that this is more effective than our present practice whereby a summons is issued and the CWO executed a few months after an offence has been committed. I think the on-the-spot fine may be more effective.

Sir, I hope the Minister will consider my proposals.

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: Sir, let me thank Mr Ang for his support of the Amendment Bill.

He has made some very good suggestions. His point is that whilst enhanced penalties are important, it is also equally important for us to educate the public, especially the students. I totally agree with him. In fact, that is what we have been doing all along. The schools have been very active in passing on the message to the students. I see it in my daughters. They come back with all kinds of messages. I think the message does sink in.

As to the campaigns that we grew up with, like the Use Your Hands Campaign and all that, we can review them again. I will ask my staff to contact their counterparts in the Ministry of Education to see what else we can do to make that message more effective.

Sir, with regard to hawker centres, I share his concerns too about the cleanliness of hawker centres and hawker stalls, which is why we have come up with the grading system for the individual hawker stalls. But his idea of having a cleanest food centre competition in order to encourage the entire food centre to be kept clean, I think, is a good suggestion. I will ask my staff to consider this as part of the programme for this year's Clean and Green Campaign. And we will get in touch with Mr Ang on his proposal.

With regard to foreign workers, yes, this is a matter of concern to us as well. I am glad to inform Mr Ang that, in fact, we have been reaching out to the foreign workers. My Ministry publishes pamphlets in different languages, in Thai, Filipino, which is usually the Tagalog language. We have pamphlets in the various languages and we distribute them at the various worksites as well. Last year, we held exhibitions on the environment at over 200 construction sites. This will be a continuing activity and we will try to get more contractors to come on board and work with us in educating the workers that they have employed.

With regard to junk mail, yes, it is a common problem throughout the whole of Singapore. Like Mr Ang, I do not know why the companies waste money printing those leaflets which they know are going to be thrown away. The challenge is for the Town Councils to evolve a system which will enable the junk mail to be disposed by the residents in a very efficient manner without having to throw them all over the floor. I think some of the Town Councils have come up with a very good idea where they install a rubbish trough right in front of the letter boxes, so that when the residents take out the mail and they find that it is junk mail, they just drop it down into the trough and therefore do not end up dirtying the whole void deck.

As to his last suggestion to empower senior citizens to issue summonses and fines on the spot, I think it is a bit of a drastic change for us. But I like his idea of getting more people to be involved in this effort to deter littering and to educate the public. I will ask my staff to work with the People's Association to see how we can get the grassroots organisations more involved in this process and, hopefully, by having more eyes and more hands on the ground, we will be able to reduce this problem of littering in our housing estates.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Mr Yeo Cheow Tong].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.