Low-Waste Living in Singapore
It turns out that plenty of small steps can lead to a big change. While the 3 Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle – as well as a 4th R, “refuse” may sound trite, they’re the backbone of a less-waste lifestyle.
“Refuse” is actually a good place to start. For example, stop accepting or using plastic bags, plastic straws, single use containers, plastic-wrapped snacks or free merchandise. Before you buy anything, ask if you really need it or if you can borrow it or substitute something else instead. Only buy gifts when you actually need to give them rather than for “someday”. You can also reuse an item or sell it secondhand on a site such as Carousell rather than buying something new.
Paper
Since paper is about the biggest category of waste, it’s a good place to focus. While much of the paper may be cardboard boxes or packaging behind the scenes at stores or schools, there is still plenty we can do at home.
When ordering food, for instance, ask the restaurant not to provide menus, napkins, or paper plates. At home, use dishtowels or rags rather than paper towels and cloth napkins rather than paper. Use “print preview” to check anything you plan to print so you can minimize extra pages and print on both sides of the page. Go paperless for banking and other bills. To stop receiving junk mail delivered by SingPost, you can submit an opt-out request on the SingPost website by going to Contact Us and choosing to Opt-Out of Advertising Mil.
Plastic
Plastic may be one of the most visible and annoying types of waste.
To avoid it when you’re going out, Green Kulture suggests having a Zero-Waste Kit so you can avoid single-use items. Take a reusable water bottle, a collapsible food container for takeaway, reusable cutlery, cloth shopping bags and a reusable straw.
You can also consider buying some of your groceries from a bulk store that doesn’t provide packaging, such as The Green Collective, Scoop or Unpackt. You would take your own containers. Scoop at Great World, for instance, sells beans, lentils, grains, flour, nuts, sweets and more that you can put in your food containers. The Green Collective at Funan sells shampoos, detergents, spices and more. There are others as well.
If you make your snacks at home, you’ll reduce plastic too. Baking muffins, cookies, crackers, for instance, means you don’t need to buy plastic snack packs.
Food
Food waste is a surprisingly large category and each household in Singapore throws away about 140 kilograms of food each year.
You can reduce a lot of that waste by planning meals before shopping, storing food properly, using leftovers and freezing extra food. When you do go shopping for groceries, look for items with minimal or no packaging and put vegetables or fruits in your own reusable bags rather than plastic bags at the supermarket. Wet markets similarly offer opportunities to buy food with less packaging. Realize, too, that going past the ‘best by’ date on a label doesn’t mean you can’t eat the food; it just means it may not be as fresh as before, and you can check to see whether it is still edible.
There are also ways to save food at restaurants from being thrown away, reduce your costs and cut waste. You can find restaurants with extra food on Treatsure and use your own container to take it home. The Just Dabao app connects consumers with surplus food from hundreds of merchants and sells the food at discount. Olio lets you get surplus food – as well as household items – from volunteers who collect surplus food or people who want to give away household items.
Clothes
Clothes are a surprisingly large category of waste, in part because of fast fashion, and more than 30 percent of clothes end up being discarded in a year or less. Careful purchases, buying second-hand clothing and recycling will help to reduce waste.
The first step is not to buy more clothing. If you do need something, avoid lower-quality fast fashion from sites such as Shein or Temu that will wear out quickly. Second-hand or pre-loved clothing has become trendy, and you can find plenty of excellent selections at shops such as REFASH, The Cartels, Reebonz or the Salvation Army. When you tire of clothes that are in reasonable shape, consider taking them to Cloop or Greensquare for use by others rather than throwing them away.
Do Even More
There are other ways to reduce waste too. Recycling all kinds of household items, including electronics, can reduce waste. While electricity and water are more intangible, you can reduce waste by turning off the lights and digital devices or the water faucet and shower sooner. Using public transport reduces petrol usage. And Repair Kopitiams host monthly repair meetups to fix broken items.
While your reduction in waste may seem small, it makes a big difference as part of a collective effort. You can increase your impact by telling others what you’re doing, too. Together, we actually can shift to low-waste living in Singapore.
Published in Living in Singapore, September 2026, at
https://issuu.com/singaporeamerican/docs/living_in_singapore_magazine_-_sept_eb4b327555bca6
