Office of Environmental Sustainability
Recyclables VS Contaminants
What are contaminants?
According to the Straits Time article “What Rubbish” on June 15 2009, National Environment Agency (NEA) spokesman said: “Throwing waste such as leftover food and drinks into the bins contaminates the recyclable materials and renders them non-recyclable.”
Hence, technically all recyclables need to be emptied before being deposited into the recycling bin. Usually, the materials undergo a lengthy process before ending up in a recycling processing plant. In order to avoid potential environment and health hazards, organic waste must be strictly separated from the recyclables.
Please refer here for a list of acceptable recycling materials as listed by NEA.
Do check out Zerowastesg.com for an excellent photo gallery on what are recyclables.
Accepted Recyclables vs Rejected Contaminants
FAQ
Why are Paper and plastic cups not accepted?
Paper and plastic cups can be recycled, however most of these cups collected in NUS are contaminated with food or drink particles, which makes the recycling process difficult.
Therefore, we refrain from accepting most of the paper and plastic cups for recycling. However, paper and plastic cups can be rinsed and thrown into the “plastic bottles” recycling bins.
You want to do something more than the general public?
 Rinse the plastic/paper cups before disposing them off in recycling bins. Otherwise, completely empty the cups.
Paper cups has to be thrown into the plastic recycling bin and not into the paper recycling bin, used paper cups may have a layer of plastic film or some organic remnants will contaminate and degrade the better sources of printing paper in the paper recycling bins.
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