Daily Lessons from Life 11 September 2012 - New tray-return facilities in hawkers at year-end

"New tray-return facilities in hawkers at year-end - AsiaOne SoShiok Sep 11 2012

As part of a refreshed campaign to get patrons to clear up after themselves, a number of hawker centres will be installing new tray-return facilities by end of the year.


A few existing hawker centres will start off with these facilities and it will eventually be rolled out to all 107 hawker centres under the National Environment Agency.

Ten new hawker centres that the Government is building will also have such facilities as soon as they are built.


Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan announced this in Parliament today, stating that this is part of a larger effort to get Singaporeans to be considerate and gracious.

Earlier tray-returning campaigns in 2003 and 2008 did not fare well.


Mr Balakrishnan also said that food-centre owners will have to do their part by designing better facilities and work flows.

Employers will also need to pay fair wages and invest in training for cleaners, said the minister.

The New Paper reported on Monday that the fear of cleaners losing jobs are among reasons that diners do not clear trays, while cleaning companies told the paper that there simply not enough cleaners in Singapore."

It is good to have another go at this 'changing behaviors' social engineering project that has failed so far. It shows HOW difficult it is to change behaviors.

Lessons for me are:

1. it has to be a holistic approach. The people involved (designers, stall keepers, patrons, cleaners and 'enforcers'), the environmental factors (penalties and rewards (carrots and sticks), conveniently designed and spacious tray return area), etc must come together!;

2. education from young at home and at school. Make the 'returning your tray' behavior the most talk about topic for each day for the next 3-6 months when the kick-off campaign is on and won't let off until ACTUAL changed behaviors are observed consistently for another 3-6 months!;

3. it has to be pervasive and 'in-your-face' with any 'meet expectation behaviors' lauded and 'behaviors that did not mirror the return-your-tray' type be vilified! OK. Too dramatic but we may actually come to that to change behaviors.

IF this social engineering work, maybe, just maybe, the 'have more babies' campaign can slowly but surely evolve too!!