Sembcorp’s materials recovery facility in the industrial west of the island receives up to 60 tonnes of waste a day, but is able to recycle just 50 to 60 percent of the waste. The rest is incinerated.

The ezi app, which was launched in collaboration with DBS Bank and Republic Polytechnic, also offer rewards to users, and a website features education material on the principles and impact of recycling.

Users will get paid for the recyclables collected, with the price depending on the material.

To use it, residents need to create an account with their mobile phone number, take a photo of their washed recyclables, then schedule a collection time. Users can also track or make changes to their collections.

The app is available for download on Apple’s App Store and Google Play, and will be available initially to residents living in the Woodlands area ahead of a national roll-out.

In a statement sent to media on Sunday evening, Neo Hong Keat, senior vice president, waste management, Sembcorp, said the company wanted to raise public awareness “on how to recycle right and to bring these conversations to the forefront to drive a change in public behavior.”

He added: “We also want to provide a convenient way for the public to recycle their household items by providing doorstep collection services. We hope that this initiative will help reduce the amount of waste we generate as a nation.”

In 2018, Singapore’s population of 5.8 million people generated 7.7 million tonnes of solid waste, about 21,000 tonnes per day.

The ezi app launches three months after Singapore introduced a new waste masterplan to ease the burden on the city-state’s only landfill, which is expected to be full by 2035 or earlier. The plan included newly designed recycling bins with clearer labelling on what can and cannot be recycled to reduce contamination.

Among the targets of the waste masterplan was an increase of the country’s overall recycling rate—which has been largely flat since 2012—from 60 percent in 2018 to 70 percent by 2030.

The government also hopes to increase the domestic recycling rate from 22 percent in 2018 to 30 percent by 2030.

The new waste reduction targets were deemed unambitious by some.

Dr Martin Blake, strategic advisor to Singapore-based waste management firm Blue Planet Environmental Solutions, noted that with the targeted increase to Singapore’s domestic recycling target—of less than one percentage point a year—would mean barely any overall increase in recycling given the country’s projected population growth over the next decade.