Houses built on both islands were perched on stilts as most of the villagers were subsistence fishermen, making a living off the nearby coral reefs.
One of the oldest residents continued to live on the Pulau Sakeng despite his family having been resettled but he eventually moved out as well in 1991, as the island's jetty fell into a sorry state of disrepair.
A new REMEX Minerals facility at Tuas began operations in July 2015, recovering tens of thousands of tonnes of metal from the remains of incinerated rubbish using magnetic and eddy separators.
Semakau also has vast stretches of Tape seagrass (Enhalus acoroides) which is considered rare and vulnerable in Singapore.
Another design feature is the built-in channels that allow the flow of seawater into non-active cells, keeping the water fresh at all times.
Birds can be seen in the air and on the open landscape, fishes swim in and out of the lagoons, and marine life continues to thrive in the mangrove mudflats and the western shorelines of Pulau Semakau.
The naturally occurring collected larvae, nubbins and fragments would be grown to sufficient sizes in the field nursery until they can be transplanted to recipient coral reefs for restoration or enhancement purposes.
[13] The National Parks Board, National Biodiversity Centre, TeamSeagrass and volunteers from the public regularly conduct surveys and monitoring of the seagrasses found in Singapore in the inter-tidal areas such as Chek Jawa and Labrador Nature Reserve.
Data gathered is then fed back to Seagrass-Watch Headquarters, which then analyses the trends and condition of seagrass habitats at the local, regional and global scale.
The National Environment Agency on 16 July 2005 officially opened Semakau Landfill to the public for selected recreational activities.
It was launched by the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, with 40 families of the former residents of Pulau Sakeng, one of the small islands from which Semakau Landfill was built, invited back to their former home as guests of the event.
Visitors are to contact TASOS, Starfish Learning Journey, Nature Society, Sport Fishing Association, or the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research which conducts guided walks on the shores of Semakau for the public.
Targeting interested groups in Singapore now have a unique recreational destination in the form of a huge open ash-filled landfill tucked away in the pristine waters of southern Singapore, coexisting with a mix of mangrove, grassland and shoreline habitats.