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Professor Adrian Kuah, who is a professor of strategy and sustainability at<\/span> James Cook University, said countries that once accepted mixed or lower-quality recyclables have tightened contamination standards and restricted imports of low-quality imports.<\/p>\n “Recyclables have value only if they are clean, well-sorted and economically useful.<\/p>\n “The global economics of recycling have shifted from ‘sending it somewhere cheaper and useful’ to ‘proving that it is clean, sorted and economically useful’,” Prof Kuah pointed out.<\/p>\n Clean aluminium cans and cardboard may have market value, while mixed paper, oily food packaging, contaminated plastic containers and wet recyclables may become worthless or costly to process, he added.<\/p>\n Industry observers said that Singapore is particularly exposed because much of its recyclable waste is processed overseas.<\/p>\n Singapore’s limited land availability constrains the number of recycling facilities and the scale at which recyclables can be processed domestically, which means that many materials have to be exported for recycling.<\/p>\n Ms Grace Fu, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment, said that over the past years, about 90 per cent of recyclables \u2013 consisting of metal, paper, glass and plastics \u2013 have been exported, mainly to other Asian countries.<\/p>\n This was in a parliamentary reply on the proportion of recyclables from blue recycling bins that have been exported for processing.<\/p>\n Prof Kuah said that since many recyclables are exported overseas for processing, Singapore does not fully control whether collected recyclables are eventually recovered.<\/p>\n “Recycling outcomes depend on overseas demand, commodity prices, shipping costs, foreign import rules and the willingness of other countries to accept Singapore’s materials.”<\/p>\n He added that if overseas buyers reduce demand, tighten standards or offer lower prices, some materials may become uneconomical to recycle and may instead be incinerated.\u00a0<\/p>\nWHY ARE SINGAPORE’S RECYCLING EFFORTS VULNERABLE TO THESE SHIFTS?<\/h2>\n