Litter begets litter. The phenomenon is well- documented and precisely why public spaces must be kept clean, says Marcel Smits. In 2021, the Dutchman founded Stridy, a non-profit company based here that promotes cleaner environments and better waste management by combining walking and cleaning up one’s surroundings.
Smits began picking up litter in 2009, when he lived next to a park in the US. “When I walked my dog, I’d take a plastic bag with me to pick up empty bottles and cans, as well as clean up the garbage bins near the playground. People would look at me like, ‘Oh no, we now have a homeless person in our nice neighbourhood’. But I found it satisfying.”
Those assumptions belied an accomplished corporate career. Smits has held senior management positions in food and agriculture, fast-moving consumer goods, telecommunications, and retail. In recent years, he was the chairman and CEO of Cargill Asia Pacific, a division of the largest private company in the US and a major player in the food and agriculture industries.
Since retiring from corporate life, he has turned his attention to mentoring young people and advising early-stage companies, in addition to encouraging people to pick up after others. Today, Stridy conducts community clean- ups and offers workshops, and corporate social responsibility projects to schools and businesses.
In the process, Smits conceived an app that could track the distance walked, time spent, and litter collected, making what was once a solitary activity into a collaborative one. He built it in response to the pandemic. When activities were restricted, litter-picking gave socially isolated walks a greater sense of purpose.
More than 90 countries now use the app, which records users’ routes and what they collect. Through it, they can also see how their individual contribution adds to the efforts of others. This creates a sense of agency and even healthy competition among them.
Smits notes that regularly keeping a route clean has a significant impact.
“It’s a chore the first week. The second week is much lighter, but you still find lots of things you overlooked. From the third week on, it’s a breeze.”
Marcel Smits on adapting to this new habit
As litter dwindles, users can cover more ground with fewer interruptions. By documenting this progress, the app disproves the notion that a single person’s contribution is too small to matter.
This matters even in Singapore, where an efficient waste-management system and an extensive cleaning workforce sustain the city’s immaculate image. Smits estimates that pedestrian paths contain between 100 and 200 pieces of litter per kilometre.
The cost of recovering every residual item through paid cleaning would be prohibitive. Also, outsourcing the task risks framing cleanliness as a government service rather than a civic duty: “Public spaces are not for the government, they are for us.”
His work goes beyond litter. Through Stridy’s programmes, participants are taught how they can improve recycling by avoiding “wish-cycling”, keeping items reasonably clean, and not placing them in plastic bags. Instead of blaming businesses or demanding that people consume less, Stridy focuses on how waste should be disposed of.
He believes the entire island of Singapore could be traversed every month if 5,000 regular “Striders” covered 10,000km each week. Their presence would convey to others that litter-picking is not menial work to leave to others, but an ordinary expression of care for a place we collectively call home. “There is no world in which this will not be necessary.”
In his vision, picking up litter should become normal and respected. “Some people volunteer in an elderly home. Others help their neighbours. We all need to do our bit.”
Photography Mun Kong
Art direction Annalisa Espino Lim
Grooming Sarah Tan using Charlotte Tilbury & Goldwell
