Trash and burn: Singapore's waste problem

By Gillian Murdoch

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Creeping out of their condo after dark carrying illicit bags of garbage was not part of the life Sarah Moser and her husband envisioned for themselves before moving to tropical Singapore.

But with recycling in its infancy on the island, such nocturnal escapades have become normal for the two academics.

Each week they dodge watchful security guards, barking dogs and suspicious neighbors to carry rubbish they cannot recycle at home to recycling bins far down the road.

"We end up storing tons of stuff," Sarah Moser said. "Paper and cardboard, plastics like milk, juice, takeaway containers."

"Then we have to do a huge big binge trip, and we're so embarrassed because the guards are watching us."

This small act of rebellion illustrates the problem faced, on a much larger scale, by tiny Singapore: there's nowhere to put the trash.

"It is very costly to get rid of our waste," said Ong Chong Peng, general manger of the island's only remaining landfill, which cost S$610 million ($447 million) to create on Pulau Semakau eight kilometers south of the mainland.

The landfill "island," a 350-hectare feat of engineering reclaimed from the sea, opened the day after the last of five mainland landfills closed in 1999.