GETTING Singapore's recycling effort off the ground required breaking a golden rule of recycling - giving out plastic bags which cannot be recycled.

Loads of them.

But making it more convenient for residents with recycling collections done right at their doorstep has paid off, with one in three households now doing it, compared to one in seven more than two years ago.

Complaints of recyclables being left uncollected or collection carried out on the wrong dates have also fallen by two-thirds.

Brigadier-General Lam Joon Khoi, chief executive officer of the National Environment Agency (NEA), said: 'We will work until we resolve those few complaints that remain. We will tighten the screw if we need to, to make sure households are satisfied.'

Ironically, just as recycling is finally taking off here, recycling companies are questioning if they can sustain door-to-door collection in the long term.

Besides the high costs of labour, the cost of providing plastic bags to every household for the fortnightly collections adds up.

At five cents a bag, it costs the companies about $180,000 a month.

Industry players say education efforts need to be stepped up, to help residents graduate from plastic bags to a greener and cheaper solution - for example, bins placed in the void deck or giving each home a crate to keep recyclable materials.

Mr Toh Eng Peng, vice-president of waste collection company Altvater Jakob, suggested placing recycling bins in estates even as households get their plastic bags every fortnight.

'Households can then be slowly weaned off the plastic bags as they get more used to recycling,' he said.

Also critical, said SembVisy Recycling's general manager Quek Keng Kwang, was for public education efforts in schools to be stepped up and expanded to other sectors.

He said: 'Recycling companies can't sustain such a programme for a long time, so we hope that the NEA will continue this.'

Others suggested making wider use of the mass media, producing pamphlets and brochures in different languages for homes and roping in grassroots organisations to hold talks on recycling.

MP Amy Khor, a member of the Government Parliamentary Committee for National Development and the Environment, wants education efforts to include housewives and the elderly, so that they know exactly what to place in the recycling bags, to keep trash from ending up in the bags as well.

She said: 'They tend to recycle more because they see it as a personal responsibility.'

Although big strides have already been made, there is still some way to go before recycling becomes second nature here, both Dr Khor and recycled companies noted.

Australia took about eight years before recycling became a way of life and in some European countries, legislation has made recycling successful in a shorter time.

Homes pay according to the amount of trash they throw out, so the more they recycle, the less they pay.

For now, legislation is not on the cards here.

And with Singaporeans still opting for convenience when asked to recycle, Mr Vincent Chan, general manager of Graceland Recycling, agreed that having two chutes in Housing Board flats - one for normal trash and one for recyclables - would help.

He said: 'That would be really the ideal solution if we can do it.'