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A Story on Singapore

Cleanliness Is a good habit but why don’t we follow it. It should be everyone’s dream to keep the earth clean and green.

The story starts in early 1960s. During this period Singapore was considered to be one of the world’s filthiest cities and disease prone. Singapore was overcrowded, they had poor infrastructure, high rate of unemployment, limited industries, lack of housing, slums were increasing day by day. They didn’t become the Singapore that is today in just one night, they have tired for many years to reach where they are right now. It was former President Lee who drove the place to cleanliness, he showed the people of Singapore how it feels to be clean and have good sanitation. When the citizens of Singapore started seeing the advantages of keeping our surrounding and city clean, it became their habit. Their journey began by caring for the nature we inhabit. One of the earliest campaign was the launch of the Garden City, it was a vision by the former Prime Minster Lee Kuan Yew in 1960s to turn Singapore into a city with abundant lush greenery and a clean environment. This was a new beginning for Singapore. The citizens of Singapore came together as one for the first time and started to make their city a clean dream city. Due the industrialization the pollution rate was rapidly increasing, at this point of time the solution they found to breath fresh and clean air is to plant more trees.

5.61 million people are living in Singapore right now. One of their scares and precious resource is land, they have an area of 719km2, whereas India has 3.28 million km2 which makes them one of the smallest countries. It doesn’t matter though, because they have planned it in such a way that they could accommodate all the 5.61 million people with all the facilities in the world. On 4th November 1990 they have started a new revolution called Clean and Green week to create awareness among the people about the environment, and it is each of our responsibility to take care of it. Different kind of activates were put forward by the government as well as the people to raise the social responsibly and spread awareness on issue such as clean air, nature preservation, recycling and so on.

Where does all the rubbish from Singapore end up? How many of you hold your nose when the waste truck passes by? And what do you think of a landfill site? Smelly, dirty, filled with heaps of garbage?  Well, that’s what even I thought until I saw Pulua Semakau, a man-made landfill island in Singapore.

Pulua Semakau changed my impression, because it looked more like a resort than a landfill site. There was so much greenery. Activities like breeding of sea bass and low-tide walks, did not make it look like a landfill at all.  It is also an eco-heaven, a lush green home to more than 80 species of birds, 30 species of butterflies and over 100 endangered flora and fauna – many which can’t be found anywhere else in Singapore. Surprisingly, this is where most of the rubbish in Singapore finally ends up, in a beautiful island which attracts visitors and tourists.

Now that we know about Pulau Semakau, lets find out how they created it using waste.

First, all the waste from the truck is taken to Tuas South Incineration Plant (TSIP), where it is kept inside almost-vacuum-like condition. This vacuum makes sure that no odour comes out. Then, the waste is pumped into hot chambers and burned. Now, the steam produced by the burning waste is used to turn turbines, generating electricity.Once this process is done, the gases formed are filtered of toxic substances and send out of the chimneys. The remaining ash is removed of all ferrous materials. And, this ash is important in our story because it makes up Pulau Semakau.

Singapore seems to be creating a habitat for many species and a lushois tourist island from all the waste it collects. Isn’t that pretty smart? (This place is so heavenly that even marriage photographs are taken here).

This is the story of Singapore The system is so efficient that countries around the world send delegates to learn about it!

 

 

 

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