Singapore's cleanliness obsession
Singapore's cleanliness obsession
Since the outbreak of SARS in 2003, personal and environmental
hygiene has become an even more serious issue in an already
cleanliness-conscious Singapore. The country, long-known for its
tough penalties on littering, chewing gum and spitting in public,
is now getting tougher on public toilet contractors and food
stall owners. This is the last in a series of five articles
prepared by The Jakarta Post's Damar Harsanto who took a look at
the city-state's most recent sanitation drive following his visit
to the country at the invitation of Far East Organization Ltd.
"Sorry, sir, just wait a minute. I'm still cleaning the
toilet," a woman cleaner in her 50s at the Harbour Front Mass
Rapid Transit Station, told The Jakarta Post, whose
representative was waiting to use the toilet.
A notice board on the men's room door notified would-be users
about the cleaning times, four sessions a day.
The free public toilets also have a notice with the cell phone
number to call a "Mr. Latiff" -- but it's not for a good time.
Latiff is the station employee in charge of cleanliness, who
customers can contact with their comments about the loos --
something completely foreign to Jakarta's smelly pay-per-loo
public restrooms where many people wishing to spend a penny have
to do just that, forking out between Rp 500 and Rp 2,000.
In Singapore, unlike Jakarta, regulations exist and they are
followed; they also keep the cleaners busy. An advisory to public
toilet proprietors provided by the National Environment Agency
requires restrooms at small business premises to be cleaned at
least once a day, loos in condominiums twice, and four times
during weekends.
Receptacles around street-stalls, meanwhile, require cleaning
every 30 minutes during peak hours. With an estimated 40,000
public toilets in the city, that is a lot of work, and 10,000
cleaners are employed in the city each day.
Keeping eating places hygienic is another of the government's
main battlegrounds.
The Post observed that most food centers or hawker stalls in
the central city were clean and tidy -- the Newton Food Center
near the Newton MRT station and the Harbor Front Food Center the
obvious stand-outs.
Most cooks were seen also regularly donning aprons and plastic
gloves when preparing food.
The National Environment Agency requires cooks to keep their
fingernails short, avoid sneezing or coughing near food, and
advises against any hand contact with the eyes, nose, ears,
mouth, hair or skin when handling food. Sick kitchen staff are a
complete no-no.
The concern for environmental and personal hygienic reached
new heights in Singapore the aftermath of the SARS outbreak,
which killed 31 residents during the first three months and hit
tourism hard.
To stop such an outbreak from occurring again, the government
is focussing its campaign on the grubby Singaporeans -- the 3 to
5 percent of the 4.2 million population it estimates whose lax
personal or public hygiene puts the rest of the island at risk.
The government says that between 120,000 and 200,000
Singaporeans regularly despoil their environment; throwing things
out of apartment windows, littering, expectorating on the street
and even urinating in lifts or stairways.
The government believes that some 3 to 5 percent of
the city state's population of 4.2 million do not observe good
personal hygiene nor cleanliness in public places.
This puts the health of the entire population at risk.
To clean up after the 120,000 to 200,000 Singaporeans who are
said to have such bad habits as throwing rubbish out of their
apartment windows, littering in public places or spitting or
urinating in lifts or stairways, the government employs a
battalion of about 10,000 cleaners, both in the public and
private sectors, every day.