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

Alternative link to Salon

[erick99]

Try this FREE article from the Syney Morning Herald. or pay Salon to read it (or Salon will allow you to sit through a commercial and then you get a free one day pass).

Let's get pissed!!

[MarsBar]

Hmm. Brit joke only, methinks.

Re:Let's get pissed!!

[TAGmclaren]

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).

How do we solve this? Well, one Australian state is doing what the Singaporeans are doing - they're recycling the water. But a number of other Australian states are afraid to follow the lead of Victoria and South Australia, simply on the "yuk" factor of recycled water.

The problem is that if something isn't done soon for the rest of us - we're going to be turning the taps on, but nothing will be coming out.

The importance of water recycling can't be overstated. It can help avoid dams (which just kill the environment); because the water that is used just keeps going round in a virtually endless cycle. Rivers can start running free again. We won't be held captive to the rain gods.

So, next time you're about to make a joke about water recycling, spare a thought for those of us not living in the British Isles, with its endless wet season ;)

-- james

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).

Re:Let's get pissed!!

[JDevers]

I've noticed the same preconceptions people have about rain at various places. For instance, most of the southeast US gets at least 50 inches of rain a year (far more around the Gulf coast...), but it is sunny for much of the year. The northwest coast though generally gets much less rain (outside of a very small line right on the coast) but is generally not very sunny. If you were to ask most people though, they would tell you that it is far more "rainy" in Portland, OR (1029 mm or 40.5 inches) than it is in Memphis, TN (1244 mm or 49 inches) or even New Orleans, LA (1574 mm or 62 inches).

Personally I would have thought that London would have received more rain than Sydney OR Melbourne. To learn that London is actually pretty DRY definitely shatters some preconceptions I had...

Re:Let's get pissed!!

[BigGerman]

one thing to keep in mind is how fast those inches come down. For SW states, most of the rain comes during short severe thunderstorms when maybe several inches can fall in an hour. For northwest, they can have the same inches spread across several days of drizzle.

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!

Holy reusable resources batman!

[CoolVibe]

Even though it sounds distasteful, it's recycling done right.

I'd drink the water.

Re:Holy reusable resources batman!

[nocomment]

I dunno, just the thought of where it came from. The name is appropriate because I would have to be "zmoking ze weed" to drink that.

Overblown toilet FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

Most water we drink today have been recycled from sever/toilet treatment plants anyway. This is nothing more than nonsensical urban FUD.

Take two hydrogen atoms and call me in the morning

[AKAImBatman]

An H2O molecule is an H2O molecule, is an H2O molecule. If the water is truly purified (A chemical/spectral/whatever analysis can find that out) it really doesn't matter. Should I remind people that the water they drink is pumped from rivers, lakes, and wells where animals (submarine and above ground) piss in it all the time? With a well, nature filters it out using the soil. Other methods require us to perform filtering to clean the water and remove any pollutants we added.

I'm not even going to go into closed system water recycling... :-)

In other news, does the name mean "NEW Water" or "Any Water"? Both names seem somehow appropriate. Perhaps it was an intentional double-pun?

Re:Whooaa

[Enigma_Man]

All the water you've ever drank has been:
Shat in
Peed in
Had babies made in
Had things died in

So... don't get so squeamish now :D

-Jesse

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?

I don't drink water...

[Suhas]

....fish fuck in it

More info in case of slashdot'ing

[Anonymous Coward]

NEWater is Reverse Osmosis Water
NEWater is the product from a multiple barrier water reclamation process. The first barrier is the conventional wastewater treatment process whereby the used water is treated to globally recognised standards in the Water Reclamation Plants.

The second barrier is the first stage of the NEWater production process known as Microfiltration (MF). In this process, the treated used water is passed through membranes to filter out and retained on the membrane surface suspended solids, colloidal particles, disease-causing bacteria, some viruses and protozoan cysts. The filtered water that goes through the membrane contains only dissolved salts and organic molecules.

The third barrier or the second stage of the NEWater production process is known as Reverse Osmosis (RO). In RO, a semi-permeable membrane is used. The semi-permeable membrane has very small pores which only allow very small molecules like water molecules to pass through. Consequently, undesirable contaminants such as bacteria, viruses, heavy metals, nitrate, chloride, sulphate, disinfection by-products, aromatic hydrocarbons, pesticides etc, cannot pass through the membrane. Hence, NEWater is RO water and is free from viruses and bacteria and contains very low levels of salts and organic matters.

At this stage, the water is already of a high grade water quality. The fourth barrier or third stage of the NEWater production process really acts as a further safety back-up to the RO. In this stage, ultraviolet or UV disinfection is used to ensure that all organisms are inactivated and the purity of the product water guaranteed.

With the addition of some alkaline chemicals to restore the acid-alkali or pH balance, the NEWater is now ready to be piped off to its wide range of applications.

In fact, RO is a widely recognized and established technology which has been used extensively in many other areas. This includes the production of bottled drinking water and production of ultra-clean water for the wafer fabrication and electronics industry. RO is also becoming increasingly popular as one of the technologies used in desalination of seawater for human consumption. It is also used to recycle used water to drinking water on space shuttles and on International Space Stations.

Re:Whooaa

[daniil]

Perhaps i should remind you that the milk you're drinking right now gushed out of a cow.

Newater

[xiangpeng]

As a Singaporean, I have personally drank Newater during one of our National Day Parades. It was given out to all the spectators of the parade. There ain't much to the taste, if you ask me to put it to a taste, I'll say it taste rather like distilled water.

Newater is currently pumped back into reserviors from the plants instead of being directly piped for comsumption. It is also currently used industrial purposes in Singapore too.

Out friendly neighbours Malaysia also had a field day making remarks such as "Singaporeans are resorting to drinking their own pee" and stuff as we had some bilateral issues regarding the sale of water from Malaysia to Singapore. This is one of the reasons why Newater technology is developed in Singapore.

Reminds me of a waste treatment plant

[panurge]

I had on the output from a plating plant. We had to meter the output water because it was as clean as the input water, and the water company refunded the normal waste treatment charge on it.

If you live near a reservoir, go and look at that. Scum floats on it, fish crap in it, the odd sheep or wading bird dies in it. And then it gets treated and you drink it. What exactly is your problem with what Singapore is doing, people?

Worse for astronauts

[spectrokid]

On a trip to Mars, astronauts will have to drink recycled "grey" water (washing, dishes,...) and recycled "black" water (you guessed it). Recycling will most likely be biological where the organic content is consumed by algae under strong UV illumination. The algae then become part of the food again....

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.

There's still lots of recycling

[Vainglorious Coward]

While the UK is lucky in that it always rains...

The climate may be wet, but don't think that there isn't also a great deal of treatment/recycling going on. Legend has it that in central London, the water coming out of the taps has on average passed through seven bodies before it reaches you.

This becomes a particular concern when you think about what people put in their waste water that can't easily be filtered by treatment plants, drugs such as antibiotics or contraceptives, for example.

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.

Some Info/Background as why NEWater was necessary

[ugene]

As a Singaporean i feel compelled to explain why i feel NEWater is important to us.

To understand why the development of NEWater is necessitated you need to know some background about us.

We(Singapore) are tiny(640km Square) and have no natural resources, our water supply is mianly from Malaysia(northen neighbours) and our reservoirs and some from Indonesia(Southern neighbours).

The bulk of water supply agreeements with Malaysia were made just before and after UK left Singapore (no longer colonised).

However in recent history, Politicians in Malaysia (namely Mahathir) have used Singapore as a whipping boy in their domestic elections. They have many a times delared their intent to cut off our water supply(which will lead to war) if we do not "do" as they wish(numerous interference in our domestic issue).

That of course is impossible as we are a sovereign nation in our own right.

This is because of baggage from the past as Singapore was once part of Malaysia before the Brits colonised us. And Malaysia and Singapore were part Malaysian federation for 2 years after the Brits left (We left because we wanted a society built on meritoracy, not based on racial preferences which to this day Malaysia still has - affirmative action for Malays, which forms the MAJORITY of the population in Malaysia, meaning minorities(Chinese, Indians) are discriminated against!!!!).

So somehow, the older generation of leaders there are resentful of the fact that we have separated and have done very well without them for the past 38years.

Hence the need to develop altenative sources of DRINKING water. For our SURVIVAL, Should they go against international law and revoke the water supply contracts.

Re:Is it toilet water or is it...

[DeputySpade]

Actually, in French "toilette" has always meant the same thing; it's English where the word toilet shift meaning to refer to a specific bathroom fixture instead of the original meaning it had when we stole it from the French language.

We didn't steal it. They surrendered it to us.

Re:Whooaa

[dagur]

Wohoo! That means we actually drink some of jesus in the church wine!