Would You Drink This Water?

theodp writes "NEWater looks like any other glacier-clear bottled H20. Except, reports Salon, it gushes from the toilets of Singapore instead of a bubbling spring. NEWater is the product of Singapore's new water-treatment system, and it's wastewater that's been purified through advanced synthetic membranes called ZeeWeed, which could help 20% of the world's population that doesn't have easy access to clean water."

Comments

Given that most/all the water on the planet...

[aborchers]

... has been circulating for years and was likely piss at one time or another anyway, who cares what the filtration system is (ZeeWeed or natural aquifer) so long as one verifies the output is clean water.

I think it was Tom Robbins who postulated that life was invented by water as a means of transporting itself from one place to another?

Re:Let's get pissed!!

[jrumney]

While the UK is lucky in that it always rains (you can afford to make jokes about it!), Australia isn't so. We're effectively a desert continent with green patches around the outside. Water is a very scarce resource here, and right now, most of our major cities have water restrictions on them (can't wash cars, can't water except during restricted hours, can't hose down paved areas).

London's rainfall, at around 600mm/year is about half of what Sydney's is, and the same as Melbourne. Don't be fooled by your preconceived ideas (my preconceptions would have picked Melbourne as rainier than Sydney if I hadn't just looked that up).

It's alright

[laggist]

Well, i'm singaporean and i must admit the locals were a tad squirmish with the whole idea when it started. but then again, singapore's a small country, and a step toward self dependence on essentials like water means greater political bargaining power.

Chicago

[simpl3x]

Since we've treated the Great Lakes as sewers for a hundred years, Chicagoans are essentially doing the same thing. The water treatment plant here is considered one of the best in the world since its completion in the 1970's.

I would imaging that having a water distiller (there are interesting versions requiring little energy) in the home will be increasingly demanded in the future. pumping drinking water thorugh pipes is a bit much.

Re:Let's get pissed!!

[pgrb]

It has been calculated that London water has passed through an average of seven sets of kidneys before it is drunk, because of the development of water distribution and sewerage systems on the Thames both in London and upstream of London.

So Singapore isn't first.

Essentially, someone in Reading drinks a glass of water, and processes it naturally. The sewage outfall disperses the (treated) wastewater into the Thames, where it is re-abstracted further downstream (say Maidenhead) and the cycle goes round again. Eventually the water gets to London.

Obviously, not all the glassful will have been through someone elses kidneys, as the Thames isn't dry between water abstraction points and sewage outfalls, but the principle applies.

If you want to drink water that doesn't have at least some quantity that has gone through somebody (or something) else's kidneys, drink melted deep Greenlandic (or Antarctic) glacier ice, or water from (very) old aquifers.

Every breath you take has some air molecules in common with Julius Caesar's last breath (bar pathological exceptions). You probably drink some of his natural liquid output every time you drink as well. Ain't life wonderful!