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RAS progresses to the final year of the LOO (Let’s Observe Ourselves) Campaign @ Hawker Centres

The remaining hawker centres managed by the remaining Town Councils (TCs) namely Marine Parade, Marsiling-Yew Tee, Tampines, National Environment Agency and social enterprises will be targeted in the final year of the LOO Campaign @ Hawker Centres. Training sessions for cleaning attendants, supervisors and TC staff have been planned from July to August, followed by toilet auditing from September to October.

Public outreach to patrons and stall holders to show their appreciation and kindness to all cleaning attendants will be scheduled from November to March. In the first two phases from 2021 to 2022, RAS reached out to 80 hawker centres from 10 TCs namely Aljunied- Hougang, Ang Mo Kio, Bishan-Toa Payoh, East Coast, Holland-Bukit Panjang, Jalan Besar, Jurong-Clementi, Nee Soon, Tanjong Pagar and West Coast. A comprehensive report with findings and recommendations was sent to all the TCs. RAS will continue to work with these TCs to improve the toilet standard of their hawker centres.

RAS certifies more Happy Toilets equipped with smart products certified by the Singapore Green Building Council (SGBC)

Four new companies namely Advancer Smart Technology Pte Ltd, EF Software Pte Ltd, SmartClean Technologies Pte Ltd and UnaBiz certified their smart restroom products with the SGBC. Two sensor products from Advancer Smart Technology were certified 1 tick or good rating while 1 and 2 sensor products from SmartClean Technologies and UnaBiz respectively were certified 2 ticks or very good rating. 1 and 2 ticks were awarded to the interactive feedback system by EF Software and SmartClean Technologies respectively.

Three companies namely Convergent Smart Technologies Pte Ltd, Dyson Singapore Pte Ltd and Infinergy Systems Solutions Pte Ltd certified their smart restroom products last year and were presented with ceremonial certificates at our LOO (Let’s Observe Ourselves) Awards by Guest-of-Honour (GOH) Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Sustainability and the Environment Mr Baey Yam Keng. This new certification scheme of smart restroom products was launched in November 2021 after signing a Memorandum of Understanding with the SGBC.

RAS supports toilet-entry fee increase at Pei Kio Hawker Centre (PKTC) & nominates its restroom caretakers for LOO Awards

While all hawker centres (HCs) managed by NEA and social enterprises have outsourced their restroom cleaning and maintenance to cleaning companies, there are still some HCs managed by Town Councils (TCs), have kindly offered caretaker opportunities to Singapore residents to oversee the restrooms by allowing them to collect an entry fee. Pei Kio HC's caretaker Mr Kumar is a good example. He increased the entry fee from 10 to 20 cents. We fully support the increase which definitely helps low-income HC caretakers like Mr Kumar to cope with rising costs. We also applaud the good practice of Tanjong Pagar TC to include the provision of toilet paper, soap, cleaning equipment and detergents as well as repair costs to its new cleaning contract. We urge other TCs to adopt this good practice as we strongly believe this is the best model to not only ensure caretakers are better appreciated with more income but also stay committed to maintain quality restroom standard with the right cleaning equipment.

This model works well in terms of enabling the caretakers to take stronger ownership as cleaner toilets will translate to better income for them with more patrons. Additionally, with the TC engaging the cleaning contractor to include all toilet costs, this enables the caretakers, who no longer needs to bear all toilet costs, to better clean toilets instead of attempting to cut cleaning costs for more income. We are pleased to know about the strong public support for the fee increase and the hawkers' commendations on the exemplary work of the Pei Kio Hawker Centre's caretakers. We have nominated them for our LOO Awards to be evaluated by the panel of judges. Since 2009, 169 restroom cleaning attendants were recognised at our LOO Awards with grocery vouchers of $100 or $200 each depending on public donations.