NEWater visit

The last excursion that i had was when i was in Secondary four... Excursions were the usual thing after the exams, when school curriculum work is out and we had lots of time... I was always looking forward to excursions as i'll get to travel out of school, out of gates (similar to today), and go gai gai... So, going to the NEWater plant at Bedok this afternoon reminds me of the good old days, when i was still wearing silly uniforms of matching colours and white canvas shoes, coated with brown stains here and there...

The NEWater plant is located between the Tanah Merah Station and Expo... It's a long deep drive from the main road, thus it was of much consolation when we realise that there was a shuttle service to fetch us out later... The Visitors' Centre is a beautiful piece of architecture... Glass panelled building with a wavy roof top. The interior reminds me of the Singapore Discovery Centre with the high-tech infrastructuresuch as plasma tv screens and 3D guide speaking off the screen...

Some facts that I've learnt today...

1. Water takes up 70% of the world... And of these, only 3% is portable water... (WHATT??)
2. Singapore uses 1.36 million cubic centimetres of water every day, enough to fill up 600 olympic swimming pools... (Sounds amazing...)
3. Singapore has 4 national taps, so they called it...

a) Water from water catchment areas

b) Water from Johor Bahru (Our abang country)

c) Water from the NEWater factories

d) And lastly, water from desalination plants...

4. NEWater is a process of recovering used water, recycling it and reusing it... Up to 90% of recovered water comes from household sewage... (Up to your imagination to think exactly which sewage pipe...) And the remainder will come from used industrial water...

5. These water will be piped to the plant, where it will first goes through filtration(in lay mans term)... Most of the particles will be removed at this stage as the filtration only allows 1/100 the size of our strand of hair of water molecules to go through... Next, it will go through reverse osmosis... At this stage, all bacteria will be removed as the water goes through even finer means of filtration... at the end of this process, water is considered safe to drink... However, Sinagporeans being Singaporeans, where kiasu-ism is always at work, these water will go through ultaviolet light rays to heat up and kill all bacteria, to make sure that water is really really clean... NEWater is thus produced after these stages...

6. After all these hard work, only 2% is pumped into our portable drinking system, where it will be released and mixed together with the water in our water catchment areas... The remainder goes into industrial use... You may wonder, WHY??? Well, it comes down to this mindset that people will have...

"What makes it so sure that the water is really fit for consumption?"

To ease off on people's concerns, the Singapore Government thus take a gentle step... By releasing small amounts of NEWater into our drinking water, gradually increasing the ratio as we get more open to the idea...

If it's fit for consumption, then why is it only 2% of the processed water goes into our portable pipelines, while the reaminder goes to industrial usage?

This is because the industries would require superbly clean water to produce wafers (not the eating kind...) in our electrical components that our Singapore economy depends heavily on...

For people whom have tried NEWater, you will always have this question...

"Why does the water tastes so funny, so wierd?"

The answer is because the water is so terrifically clean that it contains no minerals!!! Thus it tastes bland...

Now, the third question is... "If the water has no minerals, is it safe/healthy to drink?"

That is the reason why the Singapore Government only releases a small percentage to the portable water system, to mix it with the normal conventional water... There has been no exact answer to this question, as there have been 2 different groups of scientist, having different views on the issue... One saying it's alrite to drink mineral free water while the other says otherwise... But, come to think of it... Although you're drinking mineral free water, your mineral intake can come from the food that you eat... So, your body will still have other alternatives to seek the required minerals...

So the next time you pop open your NEWater bottle to drink, remind yourself that the bland taste is due to the taste of mineral free water, and not what your wild imagination would allow you to think... (juz to name a few... pee, human waste, household washing liquid, shower foam etc...)

Cheers!!!