Singapore has been making an effort to educate the population about the importance of sustainability, going green and being environmentally friendly. With this in mind, we should take a second look at entrenched practices which may be harming the environment.

Take, for example, the practice of reserving the lower floors of multi-storey carparks in public housing estates for season parking, with hourly parking only on the higher floors. Hourly-parked cars tend to have a higher turnover than season-parking vehicles. So, if hourly-parking spaces were on the lower floors instead, there would logically be fewer pollutants discharged by cars.

Why should we give season-parking holders the convenience and then have other motorists pollute the environment?

We may be surprised to find how much we can reduce pollutants and save fuel by just moving the hourly-parking spaces to lower floors.

I encourage individuals, institutions and government agencies to take another look at basic practices in daily life such as this, where a small change can go a long way in saving the environment.

Ho Yew Kee