Posted on 07/16/2002 3:32:06 PM PDT by Willie Green
For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Fancy a glass of water recycled from sinks and toilets?
That's the reality Singaporeans may soon face as the city state searches for alternatives to cut its dependence on neighboring Malaysia, which supplies half of its water.
The Public Utilities Board is looking at the findings of an international panel that has declared recycled water, or so-called Newater, safe to drink. It is expected to deliver its recommendations to the government in two months.
Joan Rose, a microbiology expert from the United States who sat on the panel, stressed the importance of education to help the public get over squeamishness about drinking water that had once gurgled down drains and whooshed round toilet bowls.
"There is this 'yuck' factor," she told a news conference on Tuesday.
"It's really important that the monitoring and water quality data are there for people to look at and to compare to what they are currently getting."
Two years of tests on recycled water produced at a Singapore demonstration plant showed it was consistently of high quality and met World Health Organization guidelines, the panel said.
Some of the nine scientists and doctors demonstrated their confidence by sipping bottles of Newater as reporters looked on. Resource-scarce Singapore is building two plants to produce 15 million gallons of recycled water per day for industrial use that will be ready by the end of the year.
Newater pouring out of household taps may not be far behind.
Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said over the weekend that recycled water was a "serious alternative" and would be sufficient to replace the entire supply Singapore gets from Malaysia under a 1961 agreement which expires in 2011.
The government has also called a tender to build a desalination plant.
Water is the thorniest issue between the neighbors as they cannot agree on pricing.
Singapore now pays three Malaysian cents (less than one U.S. cent) for every thousand gallons of water piped in but Malaysia wants to make Singaporeans pay 100 times more within a few years.
They are to hold a second round of talks next month after seeing, and rejecting, each other's proposals last week.
Rose said using recycled water to recharge reservoirs before its treatment to produce drinking water had been in practice in the United States for more than 20 years. Studies showed no evidence of any adverse health effects, she added.
Panel chairman Ong Choon Nam said his team would recommend that Singapore use recycled water to replenish its reservoirs.
"People are not very used to consuming reclaimed water, so this is the main reason why we are introducing this Newater back into the reservoirs -- to overcome the psychological barrier," he said.
Cool Water
All day I've faced the barren waste
without the taste of water..... cool water
Ole Dan and I with throats burned dry
and souls that cry for water.... cool, clear water
The nights are cool and I'm a fool
Each star's a pool of water.... cool, clear water
And with the dawn I'll wake and yawn
and carry on to water.... cool, clear water
The shadows sway and seem to say
tonight we pray for water.... cool, clear water
And way up there He'll hear our prayer
and show us where there's water.... cool, clear water
Keep a movin' Dan don't you listen to him Dan
He's the devil, not a man he spreads the burnin' sand with water
Say Dan can't you see that big green tree
where the water's runnin' free, it's waiting there for you and me
And water.... cool, clear water
Dan's feet are sore he's yearnin' for
Just one thing more than water.... cool, clear water
Like me I guess he'd like to rest
Where there's no quest for water.... cool, clear water
The odds are quite good that you, too, live downstream from somebody else.
All water is already recycled, come to think of it.
'Xactly, Willie, exactly. Sewage plants process effluent, dump it into a river, and then the next municipality downstream draws that water into its purification plant. All Singapore is proposing is that the loop is shorter...
Yep. It even says that we already do it in the article:
"Rose said using recycled water to recharge reservoirs before its treatment to produce drinking water had been in practice in the United States for more than 20 years. Studies showed no evidence of any adverse health effects, she added."
Surprising how many 'Mericans don't know where their water comes from.
Absolutely. The water in that off-the-shelf expensive bottle you buy in the store may have been in some one's toilet at one time.
It's probably cheaper to treat fresh water. It's a lot simpler to remove organic solids from fresh water than to remove ionic salts from water. The former only requires adequate filtration, whereas the latter requires either distillation or reverse osmosis, both of which are energy intensive...
The standard of processing has increased markedly over the years. The water faces greatest risk after processing from being re-routed thru the pipes to homes. Milli-screening plants here send processed water out to sea as pollution is the biggest issue. We have plenty of water. I believe as the population increases we'll drink it though.
I spent two years in a cabin in Colorado with a feeble well that on a good day provided less than 80 gallons of water per day. On some days, we had to decided whether we were going to do the dishes or run a load of laundry. The situation only improved during the spring melt, but then the water was so silty you couldn't use it for laundry. Gave me a great appreciation for having enought water, something most Americans take for granted...
So *that's* what they call it over there.
Or, as P.J. O'Rourke calls it, the hole in the bathroom floor where the toilet is supposed to be...
Good question. Probably because it is very expensive. I believe that Key West, Fla. has the only desalination plant in the U.S. There may be more now. But the technology is there. Needs economy of scale I suppose to make it work.
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