Number of litter bugs issued CWO up nine-fold in past two years
SINGAPORE: The number of litterbugs caught has been on the rise
over the last two years. As of end November, over 1,050 offenders have
been issued with Corrective Work Orders (CWO) so far this year.
If not for Sunday morning's downpour, littering offenders would've
had to serve out their Corrective Work Orders amid the full glare of
the media. They'd all been caught littering more than once.
But since the rain didn't stop, their CWO session had to be postponed.
Since 2006, the number of litterbugs caught has gone up significantly.
In the first 11 months of this year alone, 30,200 tickets for littering were issued.
This is in part due to stepped-up enforcement by the National Environment Agency.
In the last two years, it's increased time spent on enforcement by 3.5 times to 322 man hours per day.
Consequently, the number of CWOs meted out over the same period has also gone up nine-fold to 1,052 as of last month.
In 2006, only 122 offenders were issued with CWOs.
Tai Ji Choong, head, Operations, Environmental Health Department,
National Environment Agency, said: "CWO has up till now still been
effective because the number of repeat offenders has remained low and
fairly consistent over the years. In fact, for the last five years,
repeat offenders have not exceeded three per cent."
Over 60 per cent of offenders are young people below the age of 30.
S$37 million of taxpayers’ money is spent each year cleaning the streets. - CNA/vm