SINGAPORE - The Nee Soon Town Council has introduced tricycles with attached bins for its estate cleaners in a bid to boost productivity and save time.
Cleaners now pick rubbish and bulky refuse and put them into bins on top of metal trolleys, which they push along for over 20 blocks as they do their duties.
With these tricycles, they can put rubbish bags and bulky refuse into bins attached to the back of the tricycles. They can thus cut back on labour and also save time on travelling between areas they clean.
Mr Abu Repon, 32, a Bangladeshi cleaner working in Nee Soon, said of his tricycle: "It's much faster and easier to clean the estate now. Previously, it would take me half an hour to clean a big carpark. Now, it only takes 20 minutes."
There are now nine such tricycles deployed in Nee Soon: five in Kebun Baru constituency and four in Chong Pang. More tricycles may soon be added in other parts of Nee Soon - Nee Soon Central, Nee Soon East and Nee Soon South - after a review of their effectiveness.
The tricycles were the result of talks between the town council and its cleaning contractors on how to improve the welfare of their cleaners, reduce their workload and boost productivity, said Nee Soon Town Council's assistant property manager Goh Eng Lam.
He said: "Each cleaner has to cover 20 to 25 blocks, sometimes stretched out over 3 to 5km. Pushing trolleys with loaded bins over this distance is extremely tedious."
