1 - Circular Households: Repair and Reuse Practices as Relational Work in Singapore Households

The circularity of resources is advocated as a vital approach to minimizing waste production in Singapore, aiming to prolong the utility of materials and goods and sustain the consumption-driven capitalist lifestyle. This necessitates active involvement from all sectors of society, including consumers, particularly in household recycling to re-appropriate waste into future use. However, the outcome of household recycling program in Singapore has been lacklustre due to widespread contamination of recyclables, despite people’s increasing awareness of the program in the recent years. Through a household ethnography study involving 33 Singapore households in 2023, we observe that household waste management practices corroborate dismal recycling rate. That said, we posit that households remain an important actor in closing the circularity loop through repair and reuse practices. Within household gender roles, women's prudence and resourcefulness in managing households is linked to their purposeful reuse and repair of the otherwise disposed of items. In so doing, practicing reuse and repair creates an opportunity for environmental education between parents and children. Furthermore, within households employing migrant domestic workers, the reuse and repair of items enable transnational carework by these workers for their families back home. While both household recycling and repair/reuse practices promote circularity, the latter almost immediately recover the value of waste in the intimate and meaningful relational contexts of households, thus can be the preferred strategy in dealing with the stream of waste.

Co-Author 1
Brenda S. A. Yeoh FBA, Asia Research Institute & Department of Geography - National University of Singapore