Bad Singaporean Eating Habits

Food courts probably started its existence in Singapore. In the early seventies, in the effort to clean up the Singapore river and the environment, it was noted that hawkers plying the streets was a big source of littering and hence contribute to the pollution of the drains leading to rivers becoming an open sewer. Thus food courts were set up to house hawkers. This enabled the authorities to control not only the cleaniless but also the associated pests such as rats and cockcroaches. The indirect benefit was competition among the stalls led to very cheap eateries that benefited the man on the street. It was also very convenient for the population as all the local varieties of food can be found under one roof.

This transformation did not come easy. Many hawkers were reluctant to move into such a buildings as they felt that pushing their carts along the road or siting their carts at critical junctions gave them an advantage in gaining business. Thus there were many “illegal hawkers” who had to run when enforcements police came to catch them. Over time with continuous enforcement and also hawkers seeing the benefits not moving around food courts are part of our landscape. They are also a must standard feature in large shopping malls with diners eating in zircon comfort.

However Singaporeans may live in a first world country but their eating habits are still very third world.  Singaporeans are very fond of eating but when they eat at food courts their habits don’t differ much from pigs. They mess up the tables with their left over, don’t bother to clean up and just walk away from the mess. Fortunately we have cleaners to come and collect the empty plates and dishes. With increasing labour cost, these have become a big problem. To a foreigner setting foot into a  food court seeing all those rubbish pile on the tables, one must thought they have entered a pig sty.

Look at the mess

see i can finish my meal on my tray without messing up the table

the tray return trolley but look how full it is. Shows that a lot of people follow the campaign but  food centre workers don't know what to do.

see how neat it can be

Many years ago when you enter a food court the hawker assistant will come and take your order. They will also deliver the food to you and collect payment. This ended when labour cost underwent the first round of increase. So one must now queue for his food and bring to his own table. So if one can do that why can’t one return the plates to the stalls?  This is the difficult part.

Recently the government has started a drive to encourage patrons of food courts to return their trays at least to the tray return station. Some patrons have cooperated but sadly many have not done so, thus the tables are still a very unsightly scene.

One of my golf kaki suggested a monetary system to incentivise the population. He uses the example of the supermarket trolley. When you return the trolley, you can get back the dollar coin. If you don’t then someone else can return it for you to claim this dollar coin. So if the hawker charges one dollar more for the tray, then this encourages the diners to return the tray for a refund.

this is the trolley return station there is a coin lock on the top part of the trolley

Others suggest as Singapore is a “fine country” where fines are impose for littering, spitting etc, the government should also impose a fine on those who does not return the trays or clean up after eating. Fines have worked very well and if they still litter the table, then the authorities can make them clean up the food court. Ha ha, this sounds a bit drastic but it seems we locals are used to this sense of punishment

. More than ten years ago, I was at cafeteria in a Swiss supermarket having lunch with my family. After eating as we were about to leave the service lady came running to us and pointed to the tray return place. She also asked us to wipe the table. On a more recent note, I was in a food court in a Chiengmai shopping center, all the patrons clean up and return their trays.

So how come we Singaporeans have this bad habit of not cleaning up after eating and returning the trays?.