Singapore’s NEWater Path to Independence

The water crisis is not only an issue for developing countries. Also hightech countries, such as the southeastern Asian city-state Singapore has to face this challenge.

Although the island Singapore enjoys heavy rainfall, there is a lack of sufficient watershed and natural rivers from which to draw water.

The small, densely populated island enjoys heavy rainfall, but lacks sufficient watersheds and natural rivers from which to draw water. Because space to store water is so tight, the city has imported drinking water from Malaysia in the past.

In the last few years, Singapore developed an innovative concept of recycled treated wastewater, which is branded “NEWater” and provides more than 30 percent of their total demand for fresh water already. To make potable water out of what goes down the drain and toilet, Singapore’s NEWater recycling plants take water from standard treatment facilities and then use an additional three-step purification process: micro-filtration, reverse osmosis, and ultraviolet treatment. The end product meets drinking water standards set by the World Health Organization, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Singapore’s own national agency.

In my opinion this is a very innovative concept against water crisis, which shoud be adopted also other countries who are importing most of their drinking water at the moment.