24 April 2022 was the day that the Public Hygiene Council (PHC) launched the Keep Clean, Singapore! (KCS) 2022 campaign to rally all Singapore residents to take action for a clean Singapore.

Formerly known as Operation, WE Clean Up!, KCS is a nationwide ground-up initiative that was mooted by the PHC to galvanise community efforts and inspire support for a truly clean Singapore.

This community-led initiative was rebranded as KCS in 2017 to leverage Singapore’s reputation as a clean city and to sustain our national pride of being amongst the cleanest and greenest cities in Asia. That year, the single-day exercise was also extended to the entire month of May to allow more organisations to be part of the movement.

During KCS, the PHC invites everyone to take the lead and organise clean-up activities to demonstrate a collective effort in support of keeping Singapore clean. We believe that the hands-on experience of cleaning up Singapore will help drive the internalisation of the importance of keeping our environment clean.

Participating in clean-up activities will also give participants the opportunity to see for themselves the detriments of littering, as well as the environmental damage and public health threats that came with it, such as the clogging up of waterways and the breeding of pests.

At the same time, the experience of cleaning up after others would also allow us to develop more empathy towards our cleaners, and make a potential litter-bug think twice before littering.

We hope that this will gradually help us develop a culture of zero tolerance towards littering, and make zero litter a social norm in Singapore.

So, make this May a meaningful one. Organise a clean-up or take part in one.