JUST before Christmas, a colleague and I were tasked with doing a broad sweep of the locations that The Straits Times' "Goodness Gracious Me!" project had made its home in.
And I think it's safe to say that three months on, the message is clearly beginning to sink in, and take effect. A sizeable number of diners are now bussing their own trays, a far cry from what we observed when the project first kicked off.
Particularly notable are the results at the Zion Road hawker centre. During my lunch hour there, i was thrilled to see that in a space of 15 minutes, I counted more than 20 people who had returned their own trays.
When approached, most of them cited the convenience of having the tray return stations placed all over the hawker centres. The National Environment Agency, who oversees the running of the hawker centre, has ensured that the eight steel contraptions are placed at strategic locations around the hawker centre, so that diners never have to go out of their way to return their trays.
The five "Kopitiam" outlets have also reported steady progress, even though they did not have the same type of hardware in place. It was far more encouraging then to realise then, that those people who cleared their trays, did so because they wanted to spare a thought for the diners using the table after them.
One such person was Prof Chia Kok Hoong, 48, a Senior Consultant at Tan Tock Seng hospital, who likened returning trays after meals to any other act of consideration - which should come natuarlly. He said: "It’s (returning your tray) like walking your dog and bringing plastic bags to pick up their poo. When you use the toilet you also have to flush after yourself, it’s the same!"
The Kopitiam group have since added another outlet to their list - the staff canteen at the Singapore general Hospital, and they hope to move the "Goodness Gracious Me!" message into all their 80 outlets soon . Plans are also underway to ensure that designs of future outlets will include prominent tray-return stations to encourage more people to return their trays.
Having the hardware in place provide the baby steps to a more gracious culture, but looking at the latest progress report, I'm pretty convinced that it's only a matter of time before returning trays becomes second nature to us.