New Clause Presumes Tenants Guilty of Littering Unless Proven Otherwise

The National Environment Agency (NEA) recently introduced a presumption clause in a bid to prevent littering from residential flats.

The new clause under the Environmental Public Health (Amendment) Bill states that owners or tenants of a unit believed to have committed a high-rise littering act will be presumed guilty of such act until they can prove they did not commit the offense. The Bill was introduced in Parliament yesterday.

As per the new section, Section 17A, any article or refuse deposited, dropped, scattered, spilled, or thrown in any public place from a residential flat is presumed to have been committed by the tenant/s of the said flat or in any other case, by the owner/s of the flat.

According to a press release by the NEA yesterday, the presumption of guilt can be rebutted by the owner or tenant by proving they were not present in the flat at the time the littering offense was committed, proving they couldn't have been the offender, or giving the identity of a person believed to be the offender. This must be done within 14 days of being required to refute the offense to the NEA.

The NEA considers littering in residential flats as a serious offence due to the dangers it poses to the environment and public health. Around 29,700 high-rise littering feedback instances were investigated by the NEA yearly from 2019 to 2021, an increase of 77% from 2016 to 2018, with 16,800 littering instances.

Under the current Environmental Public Health Act 1987 (EPHA), a littering offence carries a court fine of up to S$2,000 on the first conviction, S$4,000 on the second, and S$10,000 for the third and subsequent convictions.

Read the Environment Public Health (Amendment) Bill here.