Buying the Earth more time

By Jeremy Sor

4th-year Communications and New Media major

Jeremy Sor

“IF you want a plastic bag, you have to put 10 cents in this box,” said the cashier at the NUS Central Forum’s Co-op bookstore.

I glanced down at the three thick textbooks I bought, wondering how I will lug them around the entire day without a plastic bag.

Before I could say anything to the cashier, Mugant dropped 10 cents into the box.

As a final-year student who rarely visits the Co-op bookstores, it was my first encounter with the environmental initiative to reduce the consumption of plastic bags in NUS.

Called Rebate2Earth, the project was launched in February this year to “minimise the excessive and often unnecessary usage of plastic bags on NUS campus,” according to the NUS Green Carnival website. As the name suggests, a “rebate” of 10 cents for every plastic bag requested from Co-op bookstores and selected canteen vendors will go into a Rebate2Earth fund used to support future environmental projects on campus.

I initially thought the Rebate2Earth initiative serves as a monetary disincentive to reduce the consumption of plastic bags in the campus. If so, then 10 cents may be too small a disincentive to most people and too little a compensation for the actual environmental damage caused by the use of plastic bags.

Hence, it is possible that the Rebate2Earth project is more than just a monetary disincentive. I personally believe that it serves as a two-way platform for both vendors and consumers to pause and think about the necessity of using plastic bags for purchases made. When the cashier in the opening vignette informed me that I had to deposit 10 cents into the box if I wanted a plastic bag, I was motivated by moral obligation, not monetary pinch, to reciprocate her efforts in reducing the use of plastic bags.

I visited the Green Carnival 2008 and caught up with Chen Zhirong, project director of the event, to find out more about other environmental efforts undertaken by NUS. Co-organised by the Campus Sustainability Unit and NUSSU’s Students Against Violation of the Earth (SAVE), the Green Carnival is an annual event that aims raise awareness for the need of an environmentally-sustainable lifestyle in NUS and to mobilise the campus population towards the green movement.

“We’ve managed to reduce the use of plastic bags by 80 per cent since we launched Rebate2Earth,” Chen said.

Apart from Rebate2Earth, there is also the Save3s project, which aims to reduce the consumption of paper in NUS through configuring the default settings of printers to double-sided printing.

“The Board of Undergraduate Studies has recently approved the submission of assignments, reports and even theses with double-sided printing,” Chen said. “We are also encouraging the practice of online submission to further reduce the consumption of paper.”

NUS students commit to fighting climate change

In addition, Chen said more recycling bins have been installed in strategic locations around the campus as part of the Zer0waste initiative to encourage a culture of recycling in NUS. Educational campaigns on the above-mentioned environmental efforts have also been launched to raise awareness among students for the cause.

Yet, the sight of students carrying plastic bags from NUS Co-op bookstores is still rather common. A straw poll of 30 students also revealed that most of them gave just a little more than moral support to these environmental efforts. It seems to me that enforcement is more effective than moral persuasion at this point of time, although I must also acknowledge that such measures should not be a long-term objective. Perhaps, when enforcement eventually becomes an entrenched habit, a green culture will be born and moral persuasion can take centrestage.

Right now, the challenge at hand is not merely to spread the environmental gospel around, but to start converting the non-believers.


After all, we only have one Earth and we are responsible for it at this point of time.

While there is still time…