Market Trends of Singapore Waste Management Industry
Growing Food and Beverage Sector in Singapore
Singapore’s food and beverage industry is a vital sector that contributes significantly to the country’s economy. The F&B industry in Singapore has undergone various changes in the last few years, with the COVID-19 pandemic impacting the industry’s growth and trends.
In 2022, the recycling rate for food waste generated in Singapore remained at the highest in the measured period, at 18 percent. In comparison, the food waste recycling rate was 13 percent in 2013 and has steadily increased over this period.
In Singapore, the impact of climatic shifts and supply disruptions can be distinctly felt by the city-state, which imports more than 90 percent of its food. To address this, the Singapore food agency has committed to gaining greater food resilience by setting a “30 by 30” goal, with the aim of producing 30 percent of local nutritional needs by 2030. However, with less than one percent of land designated for farming, Singapore must produce more with fewer resources. Faced with these challenges, the nation needs to reduce food waste while sustainably increasing food production.
In Singapore, food producers generally need help managing food waste due to the high cost of implementing waste management solutions. As a result, the city-state produced an estimated 813,000 tonnes of food waste, accounting for 12 percent of the total waste produced. At the same time, as many as 783 million people worldwide faced hunger in 2022.
Increase in E-waste Generation
Singapore generates about 60,000 tonnes of e-waste annually, which equals 70 devices per person.
Singapore's overall waste generation rose by 18 per cent last year - the first increase after four years of decline - as economic activity picked up after the loosening of COVID-19 restrictions. In all, about 6.94 million tonnes of solid waste were generated last year 2022, compared with the 5.88 million tonnes in 2020, said the National Environment Agency (NEA) in its annual waste and recycling report.
To nudge households to step up their recycling efforts, NEA is also planning to distribute recycling containers to those that want them in the later part of 2022.
To ensure compliance, Singapore’s government designated ALBA Group Asia, the regional branch of a German recycling company, as the program operator. The company is now responsible for not just keeping producers accountable, but also overseeing e-waste collection. Producers are required to hand over the waste they collect to ALBA, while the company also organizes collection drives and liaises with town councils to gather waste from across the nation. ALBA has also placed 600 e-waste bins in Singapore’s urban area, making it easy for people to dispose of their used waste.
