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The project begins by questioning the spectacle that is Chinatown’s branding and consumption practices that recycling takes on, which sees waste collection as alienated and booted out of island to preserve the ‘glossy’ image of the city.

As a marginalised and often romanticised group of people, the informal recycling sector that reside within Singapore’s Chinatown, consisting of the foragers/karang gunis (informal waste collectors), are threatened with acts that may render them invisible for they do not fit within the state’s vision of its Chinatown. However, in light of the recycling woes that continue to plague Singapore in its designated year of climate change action, the effectiveness of the State’s National Recycling Programme is called into question, revealing potential synergies to be leveraged on from this informal recycling sector. Being the earliest proponents of a recycling culture in Singapore, the karang gunis’ expertise and strong knowledge on the fundamentals of effective recycling presents an informal yet efficient model of recycling that the project seeks to expand on.
 

Contrary to traditional recycling infrastructures that are disconnected and often associated with the ‘ugly’ i.e. bin centres, the project aims to redefine the perception, experience and spaces used for recycling – waste recycling that is engaged by individuals and groups, a scaling down of this national and alienated endeavour of recycling. Proposed are waste infrastructure that engages recyclable waste as capital and works around the spatial economy of the back alleys of Chinatown’s shophouses and in turn produce an alternative spectacle within these back alleys.