Sustainability - A Matter of Choice

IMPACTS ON THE ENVIRONMENT



Gumming up the works

In 1992, the government of Singapore banned the sale of chewing-gum. Anyone may buy a few sticks of it in Malaysia and bring it back across the causeway, but only for personal consumption at home. Caught chewing gum in public, worst of all in a mass rapid transport (MRT) station, and you could be fined up to S$500! This may seem absurd, but there's a legitimate reason for it. At least, according to the following story that has been circulating in Singapore and Malaysia.

Someone got rid of a piece of gum by sticking it to an electronically controlled door on an MRT train. The sensitive doors jammed and the train stalled. Every subsequent train on the line was held back and commuters all over the island were late for work. Since everything runs like clockwork in Singapore, it is said that when the workers eventually arrived their bosses refused to believe the excuse that the MRT had stalled.

While this story might be taken to illustrate the Singaporean government's obsession with cleanliness and efficiency, the moral of it is that every action has an impact on the environment. The point isn't that public transport stalled once, or even that time after time someone has to clear up chewing-gum on the street, in restaurants, and in fast-food outlets. The point is that even doing something as apparently trivial as chewing gum can have an effect, positive or negative - on the world about us. We may not immediately experience these effects. Yet they can be immense, and reach far into the future.



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Copyright 1996, The World Wide Fund For Nature