Disappointed with the Ground Zero Market
This event kept popping up on my Facebook feed as my friends were interested in it. It seemed to be a very promising event with talks and vendors selling eco-friendly products. Best of all, it was held in Khatib, thus I decided to make a trip down!
I braved a thunderstorm and reached the venue fully drenched. However, I felt that the event was quite... underwhelming. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but the booths lacked variety and I left within 15 minutes.
Shot with my handphone, thankfully I did not bring my camera along as the rain was heavy
The rest of this post may seem like a rant, but I would like to share my views on the current green movement in Singapore. The Ground Zero Market was a pretty small event, yet there was strong overlap in what the vendors had to offer. Half of the booths were selling metal straws which seem to be overhyped recently. I do not use straws most of the time except for frappes (and I do own a metal straw for it). For other people, are metal straws necessary, or are they buying the straws just to convince themselves that they are making eco-friendly choices? It is good if the metal straws are being put to use - I just hope they do not end up collecting dust in a forgotten corner. In addition, I want to highlight the exorbitant cost of a metal straw. It boggles my mind that one costs around $7 when stainless steel forks and spoons are a fraction of that price. Other eco-friendly products are costly too (e.g. PockEat costs $30++, a cup holder costs $8). That's pretty expensive as I can find bottle and straw cleaners in an assortment of sizes for $1.80 in total in neighbourhood shops, while one small straw cleaner at these eco-friendly shops can cost $2. I hope it is because the businesses are usually small-scale ones, instead of them jacking up prices in the name of being eco-friendly.
Being environmentally-friendly also goes way beyond using reusable cutlery, bringing your own bags etc although they are good starts. Due to the "ulu" (relatively remote) location of the show, I feel that most people attending are already working towards being eco-friendly. (Oh wait, have I mentioned that many people arrived in cars and taxis?) Thus, the rest of the booths featuring reusable cutlery and menstrual products, handmade soaps and food wraps seem to be targeting the wrong audience. Personally, I hoped that the event would feature more high-tech and less-known solutions, such as hydroponics/aeroponics, harvesting solar energy and composting (vermicomposting or high-performance composter) in HDB. It can even host a panel on raising the effectiveness of recycling and zero-waste efforts in Singapore. On a sidenote, I noticed that most eco-friendly shops in Singapore are very similar - they carry handmade soaps, bamboo household items, cloth menstrual pads, lunchbox, metal straws, beeswax food wrap, food in bulk containers... Good start, but I think we can do much better than this.
