Residents in four sectors to pay more for waste collection

SINGAPORE — Households from four areas in Singapore will have to pay more for waste collection from next month as they come on board a scheme where they pay a uniform fee for waste collection service according to their housing type.

Under the Uniform Fee scheme — which will be in place islandwide once these households join — residents living in the Ang Mo Kio-Toa Payoh, Hougang-Punggol, Woodlands-Yishun and Tanglin-Bukit Merah sectors will pay S$7.49 per month and S$24.81 per month for Housing and Development Board (HDB) and landed premises, respectively.

Currently, those who live in HDB flats in Ang Mo Kio-Toa Payoh currently play S$4.82 for waste collection, while those from Hougang-Punggol, Woodlands-Yishun and Tanglin-Bukit Merah pay S$5.81, S$5.77, S$5.33 respectively. Landed property households in Ang Mo Kio-Toa Payoh pay S$17.12, with similar households in Hougang-Punggol and Woodlands-Yishun both paying S$19.75 and residents in Tanglin-Bukit Merah paying S$18.19.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) said today (Dec 8) that with these households coming on board, it paves the way for the progressive consolidation of public waste collection sectors from nine to six, and can help to “moderate fees in future”.

“Consolidation of sectors will allow the PWC industry to realise efficiency gains and raise standards and productivity. This will lessen the impact of rising costs in labour and operations on refuse collection fees,” the NEA said in a press release.

The scheme was first launched in the Pasir Ris-Tampines and Bedok sectors in July 2012 and extended to the Jurong, Clementi and City sectors in October last year.

For lower and middle-income households, U-Save rebates are automatically credited to the utilities accounts of eligible households, which would help to offset the increase in refuse collection fees for the affected sectors. The next fee review is scheduled for January 2017.