The Copenhagen Climate Summit draws to a close today, but my sentiment is that all nations have not reached a satisfactory agreement on carbon reductions, as well as responsibilities on individual carbon emissions. Not exactly what you’d call breakthrough then.

Yes, climate change affects ALL of us - that, we cannot deny. But whether or not we, as individuals, rise up to the challenge to tackle it hand in hand, side by side, is a different issue.

I don’t confess to be a tree-hugger, nor am I a hard-core environmentalist. I have to admit that I’m not a very environmentally-conscious person. But I do try, no matter how minimal my efforts might be.

I request not to have any plastic bags or carriers given to me for small-sized purchases at shops, not unless they happen to be gifts. I do try to recycle plastic bottles and other materials from time to time. And re-using paper on the blank sides.

But I admit that more should be done on my part. Contradicting my point on carriers, I have been guilty of requesting for extra pieces if they look really pretty (especially this Christmas, where so many department stores have such nice paper bags) … and asking for gift wrapping sometimes when I make more-expensive purchases, even if those are mainly for myself. I admit, I can be super kiasu sometimes.

Anyway, I wouldn’t say that my lack of action stems from apathy or indifference - far from it.

Maybe I speak on behalf of other ordinary citizens out there when I say that more should be done to induce us to take a more pro-active approach towards environmental conservation. We humans are inherently conditioned to respond to stimuli, to incentives and need to be motivated in order to act on something.

I do observe bigger environmental efforts being undertaken here in Singapore in recent years - more recycling bins located around the island, for example.

Although I do feel that there is room for improvement. Maybe we can take our cue from other countries - where supermarkets are good places to influence the masses.

(from http://stakeventures.com/articles/2008/04/15/living-it-up-on-the-cheap-in-denmark)

What you see above is a bottle-return machine, found commonly in supermarkets in Europe. It works this way - one buys a can or bottle of beverage, pays a deposit of about SGD$0.50 each, and upon returning those cans or bottles during the next visit at the supermarket, will be issued a sort-of rebate voucher of the deposits which can then be used to offset the total purchases of groceries.

This idea has yet to catch on in Singapore but I do find it a rather useful stimulus. The rebate that you get on your purchases is not a discount; rather, it is a result of your initial deposits paid for the bottles during your previous shopping trip. But for us people, this rebate feels close enough like a discount and naturally, we would be induced to get our deposits refunded most of the time.

Plastic bags are also not given away free in most European supermarkets - instead, one is charged about SGD$0.20 per piece. Which is why most customers choose instead to bring their own bags to the supermarkets.

Every Wednesday at the supermarkets here is BYOB day - Bring-Your-Own-Bag day. This initiative has been around for the past 2-3 years, if I’m not wrong, and it has been rather positive. But I do think that the time is right for us to make that progression from a once-weekly activity into a daily activity.

Recycling efforts should also be included in our households. When I was living in the student’s dormitory in Germany, garbage disposal areas were segregated into different categories - Paper, Glass, Plastic, Waste Foods and Others. It made recycling efforts much easier and very fuss-free.

However, garbage disposal areas in our local homes are different; because for most households, we use mainly a big plastic bag to dump all our garbage in, and then the collected garbage goes into the refuse chute outside our homes. There is no segregation of garbage as such. I don’t know how exactly we can be motivated to improve on our garbage disposal methods, other than being given bigger rubbish bins with different sections for disposing our garbage.

And I make this desperate plea to certain buildings which blast their air-conditioning at virtually sub-zero temperatures; THIS IS SINGAPORE, NOT ANTARCTICA!! Maybe if social norms dictate that it is entirely acceptable for us Singaporeans to start wearing trenchcoats and other form of winterwear in air-conditioned places, I will retract my plea. But how likely is that to happen? So it’s time for certain buildings to turn up the air-conditioning instead. Maybe there could even be a recommended general temperature for most, if not all, air-conditioned places here.

I do strive to become a more environmentally-conscious person, and of course that will take time. For some of the more altruistic and ardently-loyal environmentalists, I do salute their actions. For most of us, however, stimuli and efforts offering incentives must be made to increase our altruism level and reduce, recycle and reuse :)