Clean and Green? It takes a lifetime.

The first batch of soldiers have entered the battlefield.

Armed in white polo-tees with a green trim, six new Litter-free Ambassadors zoomed in on one of Queenstown’s littering hotspots yesterday. This is an initiative by the National Environmental Agency to wage war against litter louts.

Without the authority to issue fines, NEA hopes that their presence only can encourage a new social norm - one where people will speak up upon seeing others littering.

However, I personally feel that this initiative will not succeed. I have three reasons to justify this.

Firstly, Singapore has already tried doing this before. In the past decade, we have seen many ambassadors encourage putting rubbish into bins before, but have any of them succeed?

Secondly, most being surveyed about why they litter respond that the bin is simply too far, and it is very inconvenient to bin their litter. Therefore, I think what NEA should do is to evenly distributed bins around the whole Singapore, instead of just concentrating them in Business Districts and shopping places like Orchard Road.

Lastly, I don’t think Singaporeans would be bothered by ambassadors walking around and talking to people. After all, we are busy people. Therefore, what I think should be done in addition would be to educate Singaporeans from young in Primary School and Secondary School about the importance of keeping our country clean.

Personally, I have not really gone through “green” education. My teachers are too focused on academic growth, that they often use Moral Education sessions to teach academic subjects instead. Therefore, I think this is something quite serious - the NEA and MOE should work together. Perhaps, the no. of sessions of Moral Education should be increased.

This is especially important as parents nowadays are so busy that they only can provide for their children’s physical needs, but lack the time and energy to inculcate moral values in them. Worst still, some of them even litter in front of their children. Such a bad example and role model would definitely guide the child wrongly.

Tackling cleanliness issues is not something that can be achieved in one month of ambassadors walking around. It also cannot be done in one month, one year, or even a decade. It takes a generation - of teachers inculcating moral values, and then of young morally educated to replace our population.