The Right Place not to litter?

It seems like Mrs Ess is the only one updating the blog so I shall write an entry then.

Today during our Humanities trip, we went to various places in the Civil District like the Supreme Court, the Old Parliment House, etc. One thing I realised about these places is that they are 'litter-free', not a single piece of paper could even be found on the floor. So this brings me to a question: How is that this area is so clean while other parts of Singapore are not as clean?

After thinking about it, I finally knew the answer: 'the place'. It is simple, people never litters in the Civil District whether or not they are lawyers, ministers or even normal citizens like you and I. This is probably because this is a place of high security and thus, we know that this is not the place to litter. Now does that mean that we can litter elsewhere? I don't think so. People know that it is wrong to litter no matter where we are but the problem here is that there are some people out there who thinks that as long as they will not be caught, littering is alright, which is the wrong attitude.

Therefore, it is very important to change the people's attitude. Now one country that I can think of which is almost 'litter-free' is Japan. In Japan, if you walk along the streets, you will realise that there are not as many dustbins as there are along the streets in Singapore. However, Japan is also much cleaner, as people have the right attitude. Some Singaporeans mentality is: "I can litter as long as there is nobody around" while the mentality of Japanese is: "If I cannot find a dustbin, I go find one!"

This leads to the fact that Japan is so clean while in Singapore, you can even find litter next to dustbins, which is ridiculous. The only reasons that Singapore is clean during certain times are due to the heavy fines and the contribution of our cleaners. I fear one day that even fines will not stop people from littering, and therefore, we should put in our best efforts to stop littering.

Kenneth Lim (4J)