Singapore has thousands of litterbug-catching cameras

SINGAPORE -- With the country's "clean and green" reputation at stake, the Singapore government is stepping up on its measures to curb littering.

Last year, the island state rolled out four times more surveillance cameras to catch litterbugs. More than 3,000 such cameras have been deployed since 2012, said senior minister of state for environment and water resources, Amy Khor, during a Parliament meeting on Tuesday.

She said litterbugs throwing their trash from high-rise residences in the dense city state "are traditionally difficult to apprehend." But surveillance cameras helped apprehend a third of the offenders caught last year, she noted.

In 2015, the National Environment Agency (NEA) received 2,800 reports of high-rise littering, an increase of 300 compared to the previous year.

"Very often when we put the camera [there], it may deter the litterbug from littering when he’s aware it’s trained on him or the unit. In some instances, it’s also because of the understanding of the ground -- the camera may be focused on the wrong unit or floor, and we’ll have to redeploy it,” Khor said.

But there are few plans to add more cameras to the many already installed, Khor stressed, citing resource restraints.

Local reports say that other Members of Parliament present at the meeting also suggested harsher punishments for repeat offenders, such as naming and shaming culprits. Khor said the government will consider it.

In 2015, authorities took action on 800 cases -- an 80-fold increase over 2011 before the cameras were in use. People were fined between S$700 ($500) and S$5,600 ($3,993) for their offences.

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