Commenting on the unsuccessful free umbrella-sharing service in Joo Chiat and sharing her views on how to make such co-sharing schemes work, SMU Dean of Students and Professor of Sociology (Practice) Paulin Straughan explained how “punitive measures” might work in the beginning. She pointed to how there was some resistance in getting people to return their food trays at the hawker centre until there were laws and fines in place to encourage people to return them. “We live in a very crowded city and we are dealing with a cross-section of a very heterogeneous population… When you're dealing with a larger group of people, it's very difficult to depend on just goodwill,” she explained. In such scenarios, whether it is Singapore or a huge neighbourhood such as Siglap, people often have different expectations and viewpoints, so it is difficult to expect the same behaviour from a disparate group of people, she added.