Litter Trap

The first station we completed was the litter trap station, from which water from Khatib and Yishun flowed into the reservoir. The litter trap is designed to allow unwanted litter that comes out from the mouth of the canal, such as leaves, plastic bags, food wrappers and other items thrown into the canal by humans to accumulate in said litter trap, after which it can be collected to be disposed of properly by reservoir workers. We learnt that many activities that humans carry out around the canals and reservoirs contribute to most of the litter in the trap.

There are many activities that contribute to the water quality. For example, when jogging, some people throw their rubbish into the water while they passed by and pollutes the water. When fishing, some people use live bait and this makes the water smell.

Looking at the litter trap, I saw a large amount of leaves and garbage that humans had thrown into the water. That made me realize how little people actually care about their environment. They could not even be bothered to walk the short distance to a rubbish bin to properly dispose of their rubbish, but rather preferred to simply toss their rubbish into the canals and reservoirs.

I think what we can learn from this is that we should really think about our actions before carrying them out, so that we can weigh the consequences and really see what we are actually doing instead of just acting on impulse.