Dear Friends,
OVERVIEW
SIWW Week and Year of Public Hygiene! Good news and not so good news!
It was an important week for Singapore. It was SIWW2024-Singapore International Water Week. Our CEO was out of office attending the three day programme at MBS. Many new things to see and learn and lots of new connections to establish. Thank you PUB for being a great partner and congratulations on another successful SIWW.
However, with the launch of the Year of Public Hygiene, we remain very disappointed (but not surprised) in seeing still so much litter around. Our hygiene standards need to be greatly improved and there is still lots of work to be done. In total we collected over 688kg of litter this week alone, mostly around the Marina Reservoir. Mandatory Education and constant reminding with enhanced new rules and laws is perhaps long overdue if we seriously want to meet this challenge. We still talk too much and are very driven with paper policies and highly publicised Public Launches. What we need is a sustainable action plan. Fortunately, that’s what at Waterways Watch we believe in.
During the week, CSR/VIA continued with 9 programmes done with companies like Hapag-Lloyd Pte Ltd, Singapore Theatre Company, Allen & Overy LLP, SAF DIS, SCOR, Standard Chartered, Visa, Sushi Express and ST Engineering. The largest and most successful was with sustainable client Visa – 150 plus attendees doing Foot, Bicycle, Pedal Boat, Boat and Kayak. The weather was superb after an early morning downpour and in total picked up 416 kg from Kallang/Marina. Nothing to be proud of Singapore, there is still much more education and sharing to be done but we thank corporates joining us in this undying challenge. Still too much litter, too many plastic bags ending up in our source of drinking water. In addition we like to thank our corporates who braved the drizzle and still willingly did their part wearing raincoats. Well done!
In total this week we were contracted to do 4 safety boats and had weekday members patrol at Punggol and weekends at Lakeside and Marina. A total of 49 members participated. Boat training for new members resumed this Sunday.
Another active, great week for Waterways Watch and the weather was really kind to us all.
Summary of activities conducted over this week
In summary, the following activities were done for this week:
- We conducted 9 CSR which were attended by 291 participants respectively, and together they collected a total of 711 kg of litter.
- A total of 64 members were involved in CSR/VIA programmes and talks; another 2 members turned up for administrative duties
- The total trash collected by patrol groups from members was 54 kg .
- Boat Patrol. A total of 4 Boat patrols were carried out; 2 at Marina, 1 at Punggol and 1 at Lakeside.
- Bike Patrol. A total of 4 Bike patrols were carried out; 2 at Marina, 1 at Punggol and 1 at Lakeside.
- Housekeeping and Maintenance. 2 members did boat maintenance at Punggol.
ACTIVITIES AND REPORT
1. Educational Programmes
2. Volunteer Patrols & Activities
a. Marina
b. Punggol
c. Lakeside
d. Pang Sua Pond
| No patrol |
e. Yishun Pond Patrol
| No patrol |