Tidy city? It's all down to cleaners

HOW BIZARRE'I don't understand. They have dustbins at home. Why must they throw things out of their window?' 
MADAM HERIATI MOHD ISA, a cleaner

Straits Times ( 20/1/2008) By Jamie Ee & Samantha Eng

SINGAPORE is clean but not because of the habits of its people.

In the wee hours of two mornings, The Sunday Times trawled five precincts and saw them at their ugliest before the cleaners got started.

A used sanitary pad had been pitched out of the window of an HDB flat in Circuit Road. So, too, had a soiled baby diaper at a neighbouring block.

The stench from puddles of vomit and urine clouded lift lobbies and staircases, while cigarette butts, used tissue paper, cotton buds - and even tufts of hair - were strewn across the void decks.

The area directly beneath kitchen windows was the dirtiest. Plastic bags, apple cores, orange peel, broken eggshells: All these and more had been chucked out of the windows at night.
The cleaning brigade clears up the mess in time for the harsh light of day.

Cleaner Heriati Mohd Isa, who sweeps two blocks in Hougang Avenue 8, is especially annoyed but thinks nothing can be done.

'I don't understand. They have dustbins at home. Why must they throw things out of their window?' said the exasperated 55-year-old as she swept the void deck.

Despite the ongoing keep-clean efforts of town councils, cleaners told The Sunday Times that housing estates are anything but.

They are resigned to it.

Use the following questions below to hep you to write your reflection on this newspaper article.

1) Why do you think people litter?
2) Do you like to live in a dirty country? Why?
3) Do we have students littering in school?

4) How can we stop litter bugs in school?

Do your reflection for the next journal entry and hand it in on 28 th January.