NEA rebuts ‘misplaced’ accusations of misappropriation, corruption over recycling scheme refunds

SINGAPORE - The National Environment Agency (NEA) on Aug 15 refuted accusations of misappropriation and corruption over refunds from the reverse vending machines scheme, and said such statements are misplaced.

In a Facebook post, NEA pointed out online discussions about the number of beverage containers returned and the amount of deposits refunded under the Beverage Container Return Scheme (BCRS).

Senior Minister of State for Sustainability and the Environment Janil Puthucheary had told Parliament on Aug 5 that from April to July, more than one million successful refunds were made for the 5.5 million used bottles and cans dropped off at the reverse vending machines.

This was apparently interpreted by some commenters online as meaning that only the deposits of 1 million containers – out of the 5.5 million containers returned – were refunded.

NEA said this is an “incorrect” interpretation.

It clarified that consumers can return and get refunds for multiple containers in a single transaction. This means that consumers used the machines more than 1 million times to return the 5.5 million beverage containers.

On average, consumers returned 5.5 containers in one transaction. With each container carrying a 10-cent deposit, around $550,000 has been refunded, said NEA.

“Any accusations of misappropriation or corruption are therefore misplaced,” it said.

Under the BCRS scheme, customers pay an extra 10 cents for each canned or bottled drink, but can get a refund for this when they drop the used containers into a reverse vending machine.

Following the scheme’s launch on April 1, some users complained that they did not receive their refunds immediately due to machine errors. They had to send e-mails to BCRS to receive their deposits.

There were also complaints of returns being rejected by the machines.

Janil said on Aug 5 that most transactions and returns at the BCRS machines have been successful.

“For the handful of issues that occurred at the (machines), the scheme operator BCRS worked closely with the operators to respond quickly to resolve them,” he said then.

BCRS is required to submit an annual report, including an account of its finances, to the NEA.

Rhea Yasmine is a journalist at The Straits Times. She covers local and international issues, with an interest in South-east Asia.