NEWater: toilet to tap..

People looked at me strange when they asked, "So what do you wanna see in Singapore?"

"Their water treatment plant!"

o_O

As luck would have it, the NEWater Visitor Centre is quite close to where my brother lives, so I decided to get off the beaten track and paid a visit. So I caught the free shuttle bus from the Tanah Merah MRT station - I was the only one there :P

Once I got there, I realized that I was joining two groups of kids: a group of secondary schoolboys and a group of preschoolers. FML. Took me awhile to get past the embarrassment of being the oldest only tourist who voluntarily signed up to the tour..

The main reason why I wanted to come was because of the existing 99-year contract between Malaysia and Singapore over water. Back in 1962, a deal was drawn to ensure that the small island of Singapore would always have enough water. Johor, the Malaysian state neighbouring Singapore, would supply raw water to Singapore at the price of MYR0.03 per 1000 gallons, whilst Singapore would treat the water and sell some of the treated water back to Malaysia for MYR0.50 per 1000 gallons.

Obviously this was a lopsided agreement, but I suppose the rulers of Johor were feeling magnanimous over the tiny island. But now that the tiny island has leapfrogged Malaysia in all aspects, it's only natural for Malaysia to bite back.

So in 2002, Malaysia wanted to set a higher price for its water - MYR6.40 per 1000 gallons. Singapore said no, so ended negotiations and have since worked aggressively towards self-sufficiency.

Enter NEWater. It's "toilet-to-tap" water solution. Basically NEWater is reclaimed waste water that has been purified through various processes, and then fed back into reservoirs before going back into household taps!

The kids in my tour group collectively went "EWWW!" at the sight of their then-PM drinking NEWater.

So yeah, I went to the visitor centre expecting fireworks along the lines of "Down with Malaysia!" but I was instead served with lots of water conservation propaganda exhibits. The tour guide herself was quite good and she knew her stuff. She explained all the different processes involved, from filtering to reverse osmosis to UV disinfection. It was all very informative, just not as controversial as I would've liked :P

The only mention of Malaysia was when she explained the four sources of Singapore's water - one of which was by importing water from Johor, Malaysia. That was it. One simple sentence. Then she swiftly moved on to how Singapore's other three sources are all homegrown and that we should all conserve water because it's important to us and our future generations..

She also mentioned that by 2060, nearly 40% of Singapore's water will be NEWater. What she didn't mention was that the 1962 Malaysia-Singapore agreement would expire right about then as well..

So yeah, I felt like they sidestepped a lot of the hard-hitting issues, but considering the preschool audience, I suppose that's understandable. The Visitor Centre itself had a couple of kid-friendly rides(!) more akin to amusement centres, so I don't think political intrigue would be appropriate.