BYOBD

BYOBD.... Does it sound like just another some boy-band name, raising from the dust to some new-found fame?

Or does it sound like some cheap hollywood trill of a movie or drama names, where the names is sometimes so "cheem" that you can never guess the story line, like "Ugly Betty"? (I never realised that someone would put "ugly" as her first name.)

Wrong. Wrong. ALL WRONG!

BYOBD = Bring Your Own Bag Day.

In Singapore, just like where everything is fineable, everything got a campaign. And with the campaign, comes a price. BYOBD is set at every first Wednesday of the month, whereby shoppers are encouraged to bring along their own shopping bags, when they go shopping, to cut down on plastic bags usage. The campaign is organised by the NEA, National Enviroment Agency.

If you forget to bring your plastic bags, be prepared to fork out extra money for the plastic bags!

And the best part is... I wasn't even aware of it! Yesterday is the starting of BYOBD!

Channel newsasia reports that yesterday's BYOBD got mixed reactions from the public. Some are happy, some are sad, some are angry, some are surprised. Some feel its unfair to fork out 10 cents for a plastic bag, even when the money is going to be donated to "help in the enviromental cause". No further details.

What is the "enviromental cause"? Can it be made to be more transparent? What does my 10 cents do? Where does it goes? Can someone answer me that please? I certainly does not want to see another NKF, or even the mention of "peanuts" over a sum of money, no matter how small is the amount.

Another view. The average Singaporean household does recycle plastic bags! The plastic bags that we took from our shopping at NTUC, Giant, Shop and Save etc, we keep it. And we use it to contain our rubbish, before throwing down the rubbish chute!

And now, the NEA is restricting us (in a way, unless you want to fork out 10 cents for each plastic bag), and imagine if we start using recycled bags (which cost less than a dollar), there would be no plastic bags to contain our rubbish. Unless we fork out extra money to buy the bags.

Isn't it back to square one?

Or we can be forced to throw our rubbish without the benefit of plastic bags to make it cleaner. Rats, cockroaches, and even birds will fourish. (More exposed food for them). And won't it go back to a huge problem for town councils and NEA?

And what will they do then? Ask us to pack up rubbish in plastic bags and throw? Or increase the conservatory charges, citing an increase in charges in pest control of the housing estate?

Does they ever put their feets into our shoes? Haiz~~~

BYOBD to me is more like "Bring Your Own BAD Day".