Request a Demo
On October 4, 2019, Singapore published the Resource Sustainability Act 2019 [1] on the Government Gazette. The Act was issued to advance Singapore towards its goal of being a zero-waste country. The Act specifies three main purposes:
to implement a framework where persons who profit from the supply of products bear the cost of collecting and treating these products when they become waste
to encourage producers of packaging to reduce, re-use or recycle packaging; and
to enable proper segregation and treatment of food waste.
The Act first focuses on the management of electrical and electronic waste, which is also called e-waste in the Act. In this Act, all regulated products are divided into two categories, regulated consumer products, and regulated non-consumer products. The retailers shall be responsible for the collection and disposal of unwanted regulated consumer products, and the producers shall be responsible for the collection and disposal of unwanted regulated non-consumer products. What's more, the retailers and producers may commit an offense if they dispose of any unwanted product collected other than by presenting it to, or by depositing it at a place directed or designated by a person operating a licensing scheme or a licensed person.
The scheme, which is officially called the producer responsibility scheme, is the framework of the waste management stipulated in the Act. According to the Act, the operator of the scheme shall collect or organize the collection of any specified waste from the public and cause such waste collected to be treated and recycled. The Act also requires that the members of the scheme finance the costs of operating the scheme, including the costs of the collection, treatment, and recycling of the waste collected. The member of the scheme will be designated from the registered producers by the government. The Act also set requirements of registration and reporting for producers; you can find them in Chapter 3 of the Act.
For the packaging, the Act requires reporting of specified packaging imported or used and the submission of the 3R plan. For a producer of any specified packaging who fulfills the prescribed threshold criteria in any year (T), this producer must submit to the Agency a report relating to the specified packaging that is imported or used in year T+1 in year T+2. In addition, the producer is also required to submit to the Agency a plan to reduce, re-use or recycle packaging in Singapore (3R plan), whether or not the packaging is imported or used by the producer.
The Resource Sustainability Act also takes a series of measures to advance the management of food waste, including asking the occupier of a prescribed building to segregate food waste, setting provision of food waste segregation facilities, and detailing the requirements of the treatment of food waste.
Many provisions in the Resource Sustainability Act 2019 are related to the Environmental Public Health Act [2], so it will be helpful to better understand the Sustainability Act if you have an awareness of the Environmental Public Health Act first.
