Clean cities

When we answered question "Where are you from?" that we're from Singapore, the Japanese always exclaim : "oooh, Singapore. Very clean place".

I daresay we found Japanese cities and Japan as a whole much much cleaner than Singapore. Ten times better. Anyday. Anytime. Anywhere.

There is no litter on the ground. No cigarette butts. No plastic bags. No chewing gum.

To top it all, there are very few litter bins in public places. They are very, very rare along roads, in malls, in the train and subway stations and in parks. I would expect more litter given this lack of litter bins, remembering the favourite Singaporean excuse for littering is "no litterbins, what".

I was informed that litter bins are not provided because they are receptacles for terrorist bombs and such. Makes me worried now, about the situation in Singapore where we have millions of litter bins.

Perhaps there are laws against littering in Japanese cities, but we werent brainwashed with warning notices on walls, on tv, or in trains. Perhaps they don't even hold annual anti-litter campaigns!

We Singaporeans can learn a lot from the Japanese on how to keep our country litter-free. The ENV should send some officers to Japan and find out what's not working in Singapore.

Cheers.

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