In the past, food was delivered to the table after one has ordered the food at hawker's centres which made it unnecessary to 'CHOPE' seats. Then it changed to SELF SERVICE, where customers had to carry their trays of food and hunt for an empty seat in a crowded food court.
The legal question of the onus of liability should a food tray of HOT FOOD in glass or breakable food containers spilling onto another customer scalding or cutting them with broken glass in a busy food court has never been tested!
With an ageing population in Singapore, the likelihood of a heavily laden food tray containing a bowl of HOT SOUP dropped from the shaky, weak and unsteady hands of a senior citizen over the head of a child seated at a table may become a frequent occurrence and not 1 in 50 years!
Now they want customers to return the used food trays! When food trays are returned, there is the INCREASED likelihood that the cleaners will miss CLEANING and DISINFECTING the table that has been vacated as the food tray is not on the table anymore or another desperate customer has already sat down at the uncleaned table in a busy food court. That would be very unhygienic.
So would NEA then expect customers to clean the tables after returning food trays as the next to do list in their AGENDA?