You could take a little trip around Singapore town

I would like to start off with this: please excuse my mediocre photography! 

Anyway, I've taken a trip down to Farrer Park to have lunch at City Square shopping mall, and came across these pretty cool things! 

A sign with information about the impact of
plastic bags on our environment.

I thought this sign was really great! And it was pretty informative, although the words were slightly small, and people had to stop for a moment to actually read all the information on it. Singaporeans tend to always be in a hurry or preoccupied with their human friends, or hand-held friends (also known as the cellphone), so these signs may go ignored most of the time.

However, I learnt recently, that a child's curiosity about new things like these can actually influence the parents' curiosities (Saxe and Stollak, 1971). Since shopping malls are places where parents bring their children, then these kids will be likely to question their parents about it! And hopefully, the parents would read these signs as well and explain it to their children.

Separate bins labelled clearly with a poster girl urging people to recycle

I also saw these bins with the clearly labelled signs and separate compartments for each type of waste! I thought they were pretty cool, especially the little cardboard girl at the side. Until I peered into the bins. (I apologize for forgetting to take a photo. It wouldn't have looked very pleasant anyway.) 

The can bin was fine, it had a few cans inside. But the plastic and paper bins were atrocious. There were unfinished plastic cups of drinks, kit-kat wrappers that aren't all that plastic, and so on, in the plastic bin. In the paper bin, there were Mac Donalds cheese burger wrappers which I assume are slathered in tomato sauce and cheese, and used tissue paper. 

I am not very sure how this recycling process is going to unfold. I guess it is just not very feasible to have these bins in shopping malls, especially with a society that is not in the habit of recycling. Perhaps more information on what can be recycled could be put on signs above the bins!

Literature cited:
Saxe R. M., G. E. Stollak (1971). "Curiosity and the parent-child relationship" Child Development 42(2): 373-384