Honorable Mention

40% of items found in Singapore’s blue recycling bins are unrecyclable or contaminated. Despite efforts by authorities to encourage the practice, the country’s recycling rate has reached a constant low since 2019. A study conducted showed that 70% of respondents were unable to fully identify recyclable and non-recyclable items, hinting that our poor recycling rate may be largely due to the lack of effective education on the topic. I conducted a survey with 283 Singaporean residents, and learnt that the lack of seggragated recycling bins may cause many to be confused about what can be recycled. Furthermore, educational recycling labels on bins are often overlooked, and provides a limited range of infomation on recyclables.

I came up with a solution targetting young children aged 5-12, as education and good recycling practices should be cultivated from young.

Bin Appetit is an educational recycling campaign hoping to provide an unconventional learning experience by representing recyclables as food for recycling bins. Through a seggregated recycling system (plastic, paper, metal and glass), each category will be represented by a character: Plastic Pebbles, Paper Poppy, Metal Mabel and Glass Gwenn. This provides children with a fun educational experience by finding out what items they can ‘feed’ each recycling bin, by representing recyclables that can be thrown into the recycling bin as a food dish that the bin enjoys eating.

A recycling station consisting of the four recycling bins will be placed around community areas in Singapore, such as Bedok Heartbeat and Tampines Hub. The recycling station will include a display showing which recyclables can be thrown into the respective bins, representing them as food for the characters.