We can all help keep food courts clean

The writer of “Food court managements need to pay cleaning staff better” (April 11) seems to suggest that the solution to keeping food courts clean is to hire more cleaners and pay them more.

While I pick no bones with raising the wages of cleaners, I find the unhealthy view that someone else should clean up after us to be too pervasive in our country.

Patrons should not expect to be waited on like this in a food court where they pay S$5 for a meal, as if they were at some high-end restaurant.

Instead, I suggest a simple mantra for food court patrons: Take away what you bring with you, such as tissue papers, and return what you use, such as trays.

Relying on scarce labour resources in Singapore just to clean up after ourselves is unproductive and irresponsible. We can all do our part to make our country a cleaner, greener and more pleasant place in which to live.