You could say that we kinda deserved this. Years of taking hawker centre hygiene and table cleaners for granted has brought society to the point where they’re charging you a small fee to take food trays.
But don’t worry, you’ll get your coin back when you’ve returned the trays properly after use.
Up to 25 existing hawker centres across the country will soon start installing automated tray return systems, where patrons have to pay a tray deposit of up to a dollar, which will be refunded once the tray is returned. Currently, Marsiling Mall Hawker Centre and Bukit Merah Hawker Centre have incorporated the tray return system, according to The Straits Times.
The systems are connected to a centralized dishwashing service, meaning the used trays, dishes and cutlery will be transported to a machine that’ll go through an automated cleaning and sterilization process. This will bear extra costs for the hawkers, who’ll need to pay for the dishwashing services, but the National Environment Agency will be sponsoring part of the operating costs for two years, ST reported.
The aim of the initiative is to increase the efficiency in hawker centres — patrons will be forced to return their used trays properly, meaning less workload for cleaners who will simply have to clean the empty tables. This will allow other patrons to get seats quicker as a result.
Of course, the concept of making patrons pay deposits for food trays wouldn’t have been necessary if Singaporeans had been gracious enough to clean up after ourselves from the start.
But considering that supermarkets continue to be plagued by customers ditching their shopping trolleys in far-flung places despite the coin deposit system, it remains to be seen if the initiative will even work at hawker centres.
