Asian Angle | Singapore was once polluted, too. Asia could learn much from its transformation

Coastlines awash with rubbish, skylines obscured by smog and rivers, once relied on for drinking, bathing and fishing, streaked with unnatural colours and toxic sludge. This is Asia. It is the world’s fastest growing economic region – a status that has unfortunately come at a steep environmental cost. Three of the five most polluted cities in the world are in Southeast Asia, according to air-monitoring organisation IQAir. In a January report, Ho Chi Minh City was ranked second, while Phnom Penh and Bangkok ranked fourth and fifth, respectively. The following month, Unicef reported that more than 100 children under the age of five die each day in East Asia and the Pacific from air pollution-related causes. And in Indonesia, a toxic, knee-deep tide of sewage, garbage and industrial waste brought in by winter storms has flooded homes on the island of Batam, as This Week in Asia recently reported. Amid these daunting realities, valuable lessons can be drawn from the past. Specifically, from young, post-independence Singapore. Though its circumstances are unique – a small island city state with a highly centralised government – its environmental transformation from the 1970s to 90s holds insights that remain relevant today, especially as the region battles environmental degradation and climate change. At a time when pollution plagued much of the developing world, Singapore made a deliberate choice: economic development would go hand in hand with environmental sustainability. The lessons it yielded are documented in the newly released book Lee Ek Tieng: The Green General of Lee Kuan Yew. How the country pulled off the seemingly unthinkable feat largely goes back to three factors: strict environmental regulations, planning ahead and, above all, a strong political will. Get clean or get out Before Singapore became the knowledge-based economy that it is today, the nation was much like its neighbours – a manufacturing hub. Shipbuilding and repair yards lined the coast, generating large quantities of oil, grease and toxic chemicals, while sawmills spewed sawdust into the air. But the Singapore government did not view pollution as the inevitable price of progress. Seeing how industrialisation in the 1960s had taken a toll on countries like Britain, which suffered from thick smog, and Japan, where people were being afflicted with bronchial disease due to the inhalation of sulphur dioxide, Singapore knew that it had to act early. Then-prime minister Lee Kuan Yew established the Anti-Pollution Unit in 1970, vesting it with the power to make factories reduce their emissions. The Clean Air Act would be enacted the year after, requiring occupiers of industrial or trade premises to meet certain air-quality standards. But more importantly, the Singapore government was determined to enforce its regulations strictly. When Japanese firm Sumitomo refused the Anti-Pollution Unit’s recommendation to install a ground flare to prevent the release of pollutants into the air, the Singapore government did not compromise. Instead, it doubled down on the request. The petrochemical firm eventually acquiesced. This episode, detailed in Lee Ek Tieng: The Green General of Lee Kuan Yew, is a reminder that environmental laws are only as effective as their enforcement. Sewers before dwellers While Singapore is known today for its drinkable tap water, outbreaks of cholera, typhoid and other waterborne diseases were frequent in the 1970s. Contaminated water continues to plague many parts of Asia, with Pakistan, for instance, facing a drug-resistant typhoid epidemic due to a lack of safe water and sanitation. Alarmingly, 80 per cent of diseases in the South Asian nation are linked to polluted waters. How did Singapore turn the tide on its water woes? Through meticulous planning. This started with a Sewerage Master Plan, conceived in 1969, which provided a blueprint for where the country’s sewers, sewage treatment works and other sewerage infrastructure should be located. It laid the foundation for the public sewerage system and enabled its rapid development. The Environment Ministry’s Sewerage Department also stayed one step ahead of the Housing and Development Board, ensuring that the sewerage system was ready to serve new housing estates even before construction began. Within a decade, the percentage of residents connected to the main public sewerage system shot up from 57 to 95 per cent by 1980. This system, which is completely separate from the stormwater network, also allows harvested rainwater to be kept as clean as possible, thereby lowering the cost of producing drinking water. By establishing essential infrastructure before growth demanded it, Singapore made it possible for a large population to live on a small island without the threat of constant epidemics. A river restored by resolve But perhaps the most crucial factor in the successful metamorphosis of Singapore’s environment was sheer political will. Nowhere is this more evident than in the clean up of the Singapore River. In the 1970s, the river was little more than an open sewer, choked with industrial waste and untreated sewage. Having had enough of its deplorable state, Lee Kuan Yew gave a tall order to the Environment Ministry in 1977 – clean it up in 10 years. One need not look far to understand how nearly impossible the task was. The Yamuna River in India, once the lifeblood of Delhi, is today a toxic soup of untreated waste and industrial run-off, despite years of efforts to clean it. But the clean-up of the Singapore River was completed on schedule at a cost of nearly S$300 million (US$225 million), with more than 50,000 river inhabitants and users, from squatter families to street hawkers, relocated to new premises. This massive operation required eight to 10 government agencies to pull in the same direction, which was made possible by the full backing of the cabinet. Many years later, Lee Ek Tieng, the environment ministry’s permanent secretary in-charge of the feat, reflected on the task in an oral-history interview. “If there is a political will and political backing, then your work becomes very easy,” he said. Singapore’s environmental transformation wasn’t instantaneous – it took decades of consistent effort, forward-thinking policies and political buy-in. But as Asia stands at a crossroads, the region can draw inspiration from the city state’s experience to chart a new course. Samantha Boh has written extensively on sustainability and science, covering topics that range from climate change to biomedical breakthroughs. She is a co-author of the newly released book ‘Lee Ek Tieng: The Green General of Lee Kuan Yew’.

Asian Angle | Singapore was once polluted, too. Asia could learn much from its transformation

Asia’s breakneck growth has come at a steep environmental cost, but Singapore’s experience shows where there’s political will, there’s a way