Tuesday, July 5, 2011

G.R.I.N

It had to happen - a recycling initiative with a cringe worthy acronym.

This one is run by Veolia - I had a quick look at the site: in summary it seems like points are awarded based on the weight of recyclables collected at specified collection bins (no points awarded if there are more than 50% of non-recyclables and contaminated items in the bin), which are in turn tagged to the address of the landed household or HDB block (at this stage, only within Tanglin Bukit Merah and Pasir Ris - Tampines). These points can then be redeemed for rewards - reward vendors at this stage appear to be Ben & Jerry's, Home-Fix, Greenviron, Purple Sage, and Skechers.

You also need to create an account to receive your points. Your account is tied to your SP Services account number. What is not clear is how points are allocated within a residential block - does every resident within the block get the points based on the total weight of collected recyclables? Or is it averaged among the number of residents in the block (which would presumably be more fair, since there are a lot more people in a residential block than there are in a landed household). One other thing I found weird was that landed households get a 120L bin, whereas HDB blocks get a 660L recycling bin... but surely there are more than 5.5x the number of people in a HDB block than in a landed household?

Vege wall

Saw this - literally - green wall at the renovated 6 Battery Road lobby. Not sure what environmental benefits it has (presumably fresh oxygen in the day time, temperature regulation of sorts possibly...) but it was literally green.