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It's funny. Laugh. Technology

Would You Drink This Water? 583

Posted by michael from the tastes-like-chicken dept.
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."
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Would You Drink This Water? More

Would You Drink This Water?

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  • Alternative link to Salon (Score:5, Informative)

    by erick99 ( 743982 ) <homerun@gmail.com> on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:32AM (#10598438)
    Try this FREE article from the Syney Morning Herald. [smh.com.au] 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!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by MarsBar ( 6605 ) <geoff@NOsPaM.geoff.dj> on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:33AM (#10598445) Homepage
    Hmm. Brit joke only, methinks.
    • Perfume? I couldn't help but remember my high school french class where I learned what that "eau de toilette" label on the perfume bottle translated into. I guess now we'll have to double check if we're drinkin it or putting it on for the scent.

    • Re:Let's get pissed!! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TAGmclaren ( 820485 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:42AM (#10598595)
      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 [vic.gov.au]. 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!! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by jrumney ( 197329 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:51AM (#10598727)
        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!! (Score:5, Informative)

          by JDevers ( 83155 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:10AM (#10598940)
          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!! (Score:5, Informative)

            by BigGerman ( 541312 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:14AM (#10598979)
            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!! (Score:4, Interesting)

            by linzeal ( 197905 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:33AM (#10599193) Journal
            We may not get as much rain in the Northwest in some places but we have fog which is another water resource that collects on trees and what not and ends in the watertable. The gaseous form of water deposits 10's of inches of rain here every season.

          • Re:Let's get pissed!! (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Jameth ( 664111 )
            There is a major distinction between being rainy and getting a lot of rainfall. Rainy applies no matter how much is actually coming down and can extend for days without much water actually coming down. However, actually rainfall is an exact matter that can come down over a very short period of time.

          • Re:Let's get pissed!! (Score:5, Informative)

            by nolife ( 233813 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:56AM (#10599425) Homepage Journal
            It is not about the amount of rain people have the perception of, it is the percentage of time or the amount of days it is raining. A thunderstorm pattern consistant with the mid west and east coast summers can drop several inches of rain in an hour and then turn sunny and hot again. In Portland, it can rain for a week straight before that accumulation occurs. Most people have issues if it is raining in general, not how much is failing in a certain time.

            Portland [worldweather.org]
            Rainy days per year: 122
            Total rain per year: 36 in

            Memphis [worldweather.org]
            Rainy days per year: 89.7
            Total rain per year: 52.1 in

        • Re:Let's get pissed!! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by pgrb ( 121829 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:41AM (#10599277)
          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!

          • Re:Let's get pissed!! (Score:3, Interesting)

            by UrgleHoth ( 50415 )
            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...

            People have his image of glaciers being clean and pure, but thats just not the case. Glaciers aren't all that clean. They're full of dirt and debris and every once in a while, an eons old corpse comes to the surface.

        • Re:Let's get pissed!! (Score:3, Insightful)

          by sharekk ( 654035 )
          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).

          Look at a map of Australia. Maybe http://www.theodora.com/maps/australia_map.html. Then notice that Sydney and Melbourne are around the outside. Then read the grandparent who says "We're effectively a desert continent with green patches around the outside."

      • 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 ;)

        ah you are obviously unaware that most of the rainfall in the UK is "the wrong sort of rain" [guardian.co.uk] and due to a victorian water system with cronic lack of maintenance for years, we frequently have extensive hose pipe bans here too...

        Although i will grant you not as bad as the ones down under. They are perhaps a little bit more frustrating considering

      • There's still lots of recycling (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Vainglorious Coward ( 267452 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:02AM (#10598858) Journal

        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.

        • The BBC did a water study (Score:4, Informative)

          by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @12:52PM (#10600086)
          1: London is not wet. It's on the east side and all the weather has already fallen on the western side of the country. I'm from Glasgow. That's wet, it's just north of Ireland and all that weather from the atlantic just drizzles in constantly.

          2: The tap water in the UK is as good as it gets. It's as good, it's better than any bottled water you can buy. It gets sampled in thousands of locations and tested for *everything* on a weekly basis. Water quality is taken very very seriously indeed.

          I worked at a water purification board during university, each day samplers went out to hundreds of locations across the region and took samples, this was done *every* day, covering the whole region they were responsible for, the samples were all tested the same day in state of the art labs for anything you care to mention, including hormones and drugs.

          http://www.dwi.gov.uk/

          So, basically you *are* full of shit, but it's your own shit, not somebody elses.

    • Wait Wait! (Score:5, Funny)

      by nounderscores ( 246517 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:58AM (#10598812)
      ZeeWeed is people! Tell everyone!

  • Holy reusable resources batman! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CoolVibe ( 11466 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:33AM (#10598449) Journal
    Even though it sounds distasteful, it's recycling done right.

    I'd drink the water.

    • Re:Holy reusable resources batman! (Score:4, Funny)

      by The Desert Palooka ( 311888 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:35AM (#10598493)
      I'd drink the water.

      Ewwww, it seems you're already on Zee Weed.

    • Re:Holy reusable resources batman! (Score:5, Funny)

      by nocomment ( 239368 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:36AM (#10598506) Homepage Journal
      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.

    • What do most people drink? Duh. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Roadkills-R-Us ( 122219 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:48AM (#10598689) Homepage
      Until the bottled water craze really took off a few years ago, what do you think everyone in the USA and Canada (and half of Europe) was drinking? What comes out of your tap is recycled water in most cases-- just like this.

      When I had a paper route as a teenager, one of my customers was the local water treatment plant. They gave me a personal, guided tour. It was pretty cool. Up til then I really hadn't thought much about water purification, and afterwards I just didn't worry about it. They did a great job, and everyone was healthy as could be.

      I have no problem drinking water like this. I would have a problem paying bottled water prices for it anywhere besides a third world country.
    • Even though it sounds distasteful, it's recycling done right. /i.

      Basically all drinking water is recycled from toilets to some degree.

      It still seems ooky.

    • Chicago (Score:5, Interesting)

      by simpl3x ( 238301 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:14AM (#10598982)
      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.

    • We're #2!! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Thrakkerzog ( 7580 )
      I see billboards in my area for recycled water. (Outhouse Springs?)

      Anyway, their tag line is "We're number two!!"

      Humerous, but I don't know if I would drink it. I don't mind drinking recycled water, but the name just turns me off.

      • Re:We're #2!! (Score:3, Informative)

        by drew ( 2081 )
        It is Outhouse Springs, and if I remember correctly the tagline is something like "It's number 1, not number 2!"

        I've seen billboards for it, but only along a small stretch of I94 in southern michigan. The fact that I only ever saw the billboards in that one area and have never actually seen it sold anywhere has led me to wonder whether the whole thing was just a joke.

  • Whooaa (Score:5, Funny)

    by savagedome ( 742194 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:33AM (#10598451)
    it gushes from the toilets of Singapore instead of a bubbling spring

    That is DISGUSTING. I don't think I will be drinking any water today. And thanks for adding 'gushing'.

  • Overblown toilet FUD (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:33AM (#10598459)
    Most water we drink today have been recycled from sever/toilet treatment plants anyway. This is nothing more than nonsensical urban FUD.

    • Re:Overblown toilet FUD (Score:3, Informative)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) *
      Exactly. Even your other precious bottled water is basically filtered tap water. Just because the bottle says "state of the art HydRO-7 purification system" doesn't mean that it isn't recycled right out of the urinary tracts of your neighbors.
  • 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?
    • An H2O molecule is an H2O molecule, is an H2O molecule

      The next time your beer tastes 'funky' and your roomie is smiling...
    • No.

      More like an Engrish speaking ad-agency could not spell right ;-)

      I think it means "any" water, because I've observed that a lot of teenagers tend to use "ne" as a chat substitute for "any" ((especially common in Asia).

      "ne1 here?" --> That's just a sample :-)

    • Filtering... (Score:2, Informative)

      by ackthpt ( 218170 ) *
      With a well, nature filters it out using the soil.

      Which works well for particles, but not so for anything in solution. Los Angeles water from Owens River is high in salts and is run through ground wells to remove some of it, but the wells are overused and the salt content of the city's water is increasing. Saline content of Colorado River water is on the rise, too, as the water has been reused many times, some for agriculture which means trace amounts of pesticides.

      A side note... I used to live in Mid

    • I used to work for the Water Utilities Department in San Diego. We had an experimental poo water to drinking water facility, but they were fighting the same perception issue. Desalinization was dirtier and more labor intensive to get 2x the impurities.

      And no, I didn't try any of the processed water, either. :) They didn't exactly have dixie cups and a spigot at the end.
    • I'd wager that anyone who lives on the Mississippi south of St. Cloud, Minnesota is drinking water that has been used to flush all manner of human excrement. Minneapolis gets its water from the river and we all dump purified sewage waste back in about 25 miles south.

      How would you like to live in New Orleans, or drink the tap water in Memphis?
      • It's even worse than that. The fork of the Mississippi that runs into Chicago used to flow into Lake Michigan. Chicagoans got tired of their filth, however, and set up some explosive charges to reverse the direction of the river. Thankfully, a court order was obtained to stop the procedure at the last minute.

        Only one problem. Being typical Chicagoans, some unknown entity detonated the explosives in the middle of the night. The river's flow was reversed, and all of Chicago's crap now flows into the Mississi
    • An H2O molecule is an H2O molecule, is an H2O molecule.
      There are whole branches of pseudoscience and associated commerce that are based on that not being the case - homeopathy, and "activated water" products.

      Giventhe degree this nonsense is accepted by the mainstream, it's no surprise that these recycling systems are controversial.

  • Why not? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If it's good enough for the dog...

  • Given that most/all the water on the planet... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by aborchers ( 471342 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:35AM (#10598483) Homepage Journal
    ... 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?

  • okay... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Newer Guy ( 520108 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:35AM (#10598490)
    You lost me at gushes.....
  • But we don't get squeamish about drinking, say, rainwater, when some of it may have evaporated from rivers of sewage. I guess there's a psychological stigma to water recycled artificially, since we *know* where it came from.

  • you gotta drink (Score:2, Interesting)

    by carrett ( 671802 )
    if these people don't have access to clean water, i think they'll trust the cleaning method and go for this. the only reason they would have for not accepting it would be if they were rich enough to buy clean water from a more reliable/comforting source (like, one with water that hasn't been in a toilet). either way, people need water right?

  • I don't drink water... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Suhas ( 232056 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:36AM (#10598499)
    ....fish fuck in it

  • Reminds me of this... (Score:5, Informative)

    by thirteenVA ( 759860 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:36AM (#10598504)
    This [outhousesprings.com] company plastered incredibly funny billboards all over northeastern pennsylvania to gauge what kind of marketing buzz they'd get from the idea of recycled water.
    • They had it down here in Virginia, too. They got a bad write-up in the local paper (FUD mostly) so the billboards went away as quickly as they had come...

  • More info in case of slashdot'ing (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:36AM (#10598512)
    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.

  • er... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    They already have this on the market. Its called Dasani.

    _
    windows cursors [paware.com]

  • Caught the typo (Score:5, Funny)

    by ImTwoSlick ( 723185 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:37AM (#10598517)
    advanced synthetic membranes called ZeeWeed

    That's spelled WeeWeed.

  • I'm sure NASA has looked into using this for providing drinking water to astronauts on extended stays in space. I think it's been suggested that this method could be used on the 9 month flight to Mars. That makes me wonder, where does the ISS get its' water from?
  • Don't drink the water
    Don't drink the water
    There's blood in the water
    Don't drink the water
  • I guarantee that the vain people of the world would purchase it for $3.50

    NEWater, the purity of Singapore's natural springs now availiable to your home or business.
  • "NEWater ... it gushes from the toilets of Singapore instead of a bubbling spring.

    New meaning for Eau de Toilette

    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."

    You see where this is going, right? You find some damn way to purify pee and poop water (along with the odd cigarett butt and chunder) and e

  • Newater (Score:5, Informative)

    by xiangpeng ( 324117 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:38AM (#10598543) Homepage
    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.
    • I have personally drank Newater .... There ain't much to the taste ...

      And, if you stop to think about where it comes from, that's a good thing!

  • Water (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Prince Vegeta SSJ4 ( 718736 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:39AM (#10598545)
    Any water consumed, is recycled in some manner. From government owned resevoirs, wastewater treatment plants, etc. What we drink now already has some very nasty stuff (anybody ever been to a solids filtering station at a wastewater treatment plant can appreciate this) filtered out of it, albeit by nature, and not as directly as in this case.

    That being said, what happens when one process or another fails in this NEWater. Would it be catastrophic, ie Hepatitis or something in bottles? In nature, the process is long enough that a failure or two may not matter. With our potable drinking supply, failure can lead to some bad things - but not on nearly the same level as if it was directly processed wastewater.

    I think I'll wait until this has been proven in practice for quite somke time.

  • ObSimpsons|Gross (Score:3, Funny)

    by LittleGuy ( 267282 ) * on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:39AM (#10598550)
    Mmmmmmm..... Singapore toilet water.....

  • Yeah, but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by genkael ( 102983 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:40AM (#10598564)
    where's the caffeine?
  • Some one else watched too much Law and Order for this to be today's posting.

    But to the question posed F*** NO !

    All it takes is one little perf in the membrane and that batch is contaminated, whats wrong with desalination of sea water for bringing water to the masses ? Yeah it requires energy , but solar is GREAT for it, this requires energy too, is it cost effective ?
  • Given that this gives people in the world a better option than drinking the contaminated water they have, I'm all for it and would drink it. This will help in so many areas: 1. Clean water for drinking and cooking. 2. Less diseases spread. 3. Possibly less conflict over water rights in certain areas. Just my two cents...

  • Reminds me of a waste treatment plant (Score:5, Insightful)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:44AM (#10598626)
    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?

    • Then why output the water? Why not save some $ and reuse it in your processes?
      • Since you ask, by the time the water was output it had gone through several processes. However, the last process required a treatment which resulted in a raw output at a pH of about 9.5, and a chromium content of about 1-2 parts per billion. This actually suited the water company since their bacteria need a tiny amount of chromium. To recycle the water at this point would have required an expensive two stage treatment to remove the last tiny amount of chromium and then lower the pH, followed by another pass

  • NEWater (Score:3, Funny)

    by Viceman001 ( 781135 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:45AM (#10598647) Homepage
    Is made of people!!!!

  • Worse for astronauts (Score:5, Informative)

    by spectrokid ( 660550 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:46AM (#10598654) Homepage
    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....
    • On a trip to Mars, astronauts will have to drink recycled

      Eh, most of the water knocking around planet earth has been knocking around for millions of years, and has been recycled more than a few times.

  • I'm surprised... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rampant mac ( 561036 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @10:48AM (#10598678)
    People are going to be extremely uptight about this, but this water will probably more pure than Dasani or Aquafina [missouri.edu], since they are nothing more than filtered tap water.

    We freak about purified water that comes from a questionable source, yet most of us probably think nothing about cooking with tap water (I certainly have no idea where my tap water comes from, other than the faucet).

  • I actually don't have a problem with this. Nature does the same thing with its water cycle, only slower. This is just speeding up the process. As long as I'm certain that the water is truly purified then I'm cool with it.

  • Fizzy yellow water... (Score:2, Informative)

    by 3nuff ( 824173 )
    is beer!

    Seriously, having working in the IT sector of water treatment (yes there is one), I can say that, at least in Southern California, the water from the tertiary plants are cleaner than from your tap.

    At one particular tertiary plant wastewater is dumped in basins, allowed to filter through the ground, then extracted via well pumps. The water is then run through one of the largest UV light arrays that I've ever seen. Impressive.

    Done right reclaimed water is viable.
  • In Britain you can (if you'd really want to) go on tours of sewage treatment facilities. One of the highlights is drinking the water that comes out of the end of process (to prove the point that they really do clean the water before they dump it back into the rivers). It's really not that bad at all...Is the idea of pumping this treated water back into the mains really that new an idea?
  • So its drinkable, how does that help the millions of people in urban slums in African nations and India? Are you gonna find someone to go into a politically unstable country and install a ZeeWeed® 500 based water treatment machine [zenon.com], or enough to supply clean water to those densely populated areas. Oh, and who pays? Maintains? Regulates?, so some rebel doesn't monopolize the thing and rape anyone who doesn't feel obliged to pay him.

    Pipe dreams my friends. As wonderful as it sounds, the realities of i

  • It's alright (Score:5, Interesting)

    by laggist ( 784355 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:02AM (#10598855)
    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.

  • A different solution for abundant dirty water (Score:3, Informative)

    by LauraLolly ( 229637 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:14AM (#10598984)
    "...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."

    Water recycling to this extent is only useful in areas with water systems. ZeeWeed, and all other municipal systems such as this, are just too expensive for people in poor rural areas, such as much of India, China, and major parts of the African continent.

    A much more practical solution for poor rural areas with abundant dirty water is household filtration and chlorination. This can be done with low-tech methods. The only middling tech item is a small bottle of sodium hypochlorite (bleach) that is used on a household basis. Since the bottle costs under US$0.40, and is lasts for several (six to ten) weeks depending on the household size, this truly is an affordable solution.

    Science News [findarticles.com] ran the details some time back.

  • Some Info/Background as why NEWater was necessary (Score:5, Informative)

    by ugene ( 585379 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:34AM (#10599205)
    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.

  • Singapore's dependence on Malaysia's water (Score:4, Insightful)

    by colin_n ( 50370 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @11:46AM (#10599335) Homepage Journal
    The interesting thing about Singapore is that most of the country's water comes across a bridge from Malaysia. They are in an interesting Military / Strategic dilemma where their dependence on another country for fresh water is a severe national security issue. To be able to recycle waste water and use it for drinking is a huge deal that could lead to aqua independence from Malaysia. If only the US could make gasoline out of CO2!

  • Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by misleb ( 129952 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @12:28PM (#10599779)
    I thought water treatment was standard practice in many places. It is in the US. Even where water isn't necessarily scarce. Really, I thought all "city water" came from a treatment facilities. That is where they add the chlorine and flouride and stuff.

    Perhaps this new treatment method makes better water than most facilities, but is it really that unusual to be drinking water that was once flushed down the toilet?

    -matthew

  • All Are Connected (Score:3, Funny)

    by Databass ( 254179 ) on Friday October 22, 2004 @02:25PM (#10601958)
    It's one of those head trips people tend to think of in grade school:

    "The water I drink has been on this planet for so long. Who knows where this drop of water right here has been before? Maybe it was even inside a dinosaur!"

    It seems possible and maybe even likely that all the water you drink has been pissed out of SOMETHING in the billions of years this planet has existed. And it wasn't filtered by ZeeWeed then.

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