VERY VERY INPORTANT NEWS: New Water Exposed!! Si Liao Lah!

[Trout]

Quote: [By the way, EDCs (which includes synthetic hormone equivalents, synthetic biological compound equivalents - like your sugar substitutes.) are actually not that hard to remove. You just need to adsorb them onto a highly adsorptive media, and replace the media periodically when it gets saturated.]

Bio-hormones can only be partially removed by Activited Carbon & not filtration.

There's always EDCs present, even in the most pristine of waters which has some level of biological activity (ie, water that supports life). And because of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, 100% removal is impossible, though you certainly get get it down to >99% removal with activated carbon media filters, or some membrane filter which actively binds EDCs.

The objective is more to get the EDC levels down to a level which does not wreck havoc to your endocrine system.

Note:
The RO membranes do retard the permeation of EDCs substantially, but of course, they eventually breakthrough, since RO membranes are carbon-based polymeric matrix, and and EDCs being organic compounds, dissolve preferentially into the membrane as compared to water and other polar substances. Most of the EDC that dissolves into the RO membrane is bound permanently to the RO membrane and does not come out the other side. Question now mainly is how frequently they change the RO membranes?

Given the boron breakthrough of the hydronautics polyamide RO membrane is 5 yrs, the saturation of EDCs on the RO membranes would be probably shorter than 5 yrs.

Now suppose you have a pre-treatment step which binds most of the EDCs, then the RO membrane would have more breathing room before required replacement...and this is where I am trying to make my $$. Come talk to me if you interested to know more.

Cheers,
Trout

 

[Trout]

Found something interesting, seems that PUB is generally of the same mind as of 2004 as with my thoughts:

http://www.adbi.org/conf-seminar-papers/2004/10/05/621.waste.water.management.singapore/

Waste Water Management in Singapore

This presentation was made by Dr. Ramasamy Meiyappan, Director, Public Utilities Board, Singapore, at ADBI's Workshop on Managing Regional Public Goods: Health, Labor Mobility, and Environment.

It covers:

* Waste water management in Singapore
* Sewerage infrastructure in Singapore
* Sewerage and water reclamation development
* Sewerage development program
* Waste water treatment
* Industrial water
* Future plans for improving sewerage improvement

 

[Goh Meng Seng]

Dear Trout,

Interesting perspective.

If we switch to such a system as suggested by you, then maybe we will save more portable water by using seawater for toilet flushing.. or at least.. untreated water for toilet flushing.

It is silly and really waste of money, energy and water to use portable water for toilet flushing.

Goh Meng Seng

I had a fairly in-depth discussion on this with one of the members of my dissertation committee previously and this is why we concluded:

Centralized water treatment isn't cost-effective, and decentralized treatment is the way to go. Why treat massive quantities of water to levels which is extremely clean, only to let it flow down near-century old leaky, degraded old pipe infrastructure which greatly diminishes its quality when it reaches your tap. 10-50% of the water pumped through the aged-mains leak into the ground and all that treatment you subject it to essentially goes to waste.

A better water treatment strategy would be to pump raw reservoir water through the aged mains and to smaller neighbourhood treatment plants where water is only treated to 3 varying standards of quality near point of use (POU) - high-grade industrial use (UF-RO-DI, Newater quality), drinking (UF- activated carbon filter) and grey water (effectively just Sand or MF-filtered - mainly for flushing, watering plants, purposes where you just need water of a okay quality etc).

Effectively you only treat enough water to sufficient standards for its final use. Certainly the amount of high quality wastage would be less.

Unfortunately, such an infrastructure would require quite an extensive re-work of our existing water infrastructure, but its mostly near the POU end. Given that we're in economic doldrums now, it'll be a nice and much needed stimulus package, if the government wants to do this. This infrastructure is also alot more labour intensive in terms of operational maintenance, which probably helps to put more people into employment. Certainly something which the EDB would like.

A similar system re-work should work for wastewater treatment infrastructure as well. Decentralize segments of the system to focus on priority points of discharge (POD), particularly those heavy/manufacturing industry and pharma production discharge points. These industries typicially discharge wastewater with high heavy metal and non-biodegradable hydrocarbon/Endocrine Disrupting Compounds(EDC) content, and its much easier to treat these sources of wastewater at point source with the appropriate wastewater treatment techniques when the pollutants are highly concentrated, rather centralizing these flows and thus greatly diluting the pollutant concentration, which makes it much harder to comprehensively treat (although dilution does hide the problem very well).

After the critical POD streams have been treated to effluent quality satisfying that of typical municipal discharge, then would it be appropriate to mix the streams for a more centralized treatment approach.

Even then, you certainly don't need to do MBR-UF-RO Newater style treatment to get the water to reclaimable quality standards. A simple UF-MBR-carbon filter configuration would get the water quality to standards good enough for reservoir storage for total recycle.

By the way, EDCs (which includes synthetic hormone equivalents, synthetic biological compound equivalents - like your sugar substitutes.) are actually not that hard to remove. You just need to adsorb them onto a highly adsorptive media, and replace the media periodically when it gets saturated.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers,
Trout

 

[Leegimeremover]

Dear Trout,

Interesting perspective.

If we switch to such a system as suggested by you, then maybe we will save more portable water by using seawater for toilet flushing.. or at least.. untreated water for toilet flushing.

It is silly and really waste of money, energy and water to use portable water for toilet flushing.

Goh Meng Seng

I see you have very poor scientific train of thought, and one does not need to be a practicing scientist or a wise person. Appealing to experts without thought is like blindly appealing to the Bible, Koran or whichever religious texts. I cannot believe you talk like the PAP, making excuses by appealing to some authority without proper understanding

Go read up on ppb and ppm, especially, on VOCs and POPs. Then go read up on water standards from WHO, USA and Singapore.

There is almost no way of ensuring any waters is totally pure. With so many manufactured chemicals out there and released chemicals from the Earth due to our anthropogenic activities, there is no pristine earth, water or air in the world, so to speak. Even in the past, before industrialization, it was never that pure anyway. It was just that humans and lifeforms could expel the substances from their bodies to the extent they could still function properly.

Once you increase the degree of accuracy of measurement, you can typically add another zero in the decimal place. So there goes your 100% pure. It was not too long ago that people were bragging 100% purity or smoothness of materials. Scanning the surface of any material via an electron microscope should change your view.

When you shoot your mouth off about toilet flushing using saltwater, did you ever even bother to consider abrasion and damage to sewage pipe systems? Do you even know that your cooking oil can cause serious abrasive action to sewage pipes? If you are so environmentally conscious, why are you not talking about waterless toilets with resource reclamation from all human excretes? Why not talk about grey, yellow, brown and black water? Why not check with your experts and see what is already being done in OECD, Africa, India and China?

 

[Trout]

When you shoot your mouth off about toilet flushing using saltwater, did you ever even bother to consider abrasion and damage to sewage pipe systems? Do you even know that your cooking oil can cause serious abrasive action to sewage pipes? If you are so environmentally conscious, why are you not talking about waterless toilets with resource reclamation from all human excretes? Why not talk about grey, yellow, brown and black water? Why not check with your experts and see what is already being done in OECD, Africa, India and China?

Dear Mr. Goh MS,

Seawater's not the best thing to flush through plastic pipes - tends to degrade the pipes via chloride attack, its usually the water of last resort to do anything. Raw reservoir water, on the other hand, as long as a bit of filtering has been done to remove most of the microbes, works fine for most of our water applications where water quality is not critical.

Point to note: (I guess this is to address some residual points in this thread)

Newater is a good idea, as long as it is just used for high-grade water in industries, because you were creating a new channel for water re-use, and Singapore had a massive requirement for high quality water for its industry which can only be cheaply delivered via RO means.

I believe that was the CH2M Hill consulting team's (My dissertation committee member that I mentioned in the earlier post is part of that time that did the consulting study before he came back to academia) original suggestion as well, but probably someone from the SG side suggested to toss part of it back into the reservoirs for drinking, which is quite a waste from a process perspective, and also creates unwarranted controversy. Then they had to do a huge PR campaign about not requiring Malaysian water anymore, which did nothing constructive and just upped tensions across the Causeway.

Certainly we would have done very well had they done Newater in stealth, just for high grade industry use, and all would be none-the-wiser.

Cheers,
Trout

 

[Goh Meng Seng]

Nope. I am no expert and I don't argue with experts on things that I don't know. Experts are not written text and they are dynamic. Knowledge may not be Truth but it is the best thing we have on hand although knowledge keeps upgrading and changing according new findings. It would be unreasonable to believe in something (even though if objectively, the "Truth" with hindsight) that you don't even know yet by discarding what you know now, by experts in the field.

Yes, water cannot be pure but the question here is not about purity, but rather ridding substances that may have adverse effect on human health.

Water standards are set by human beings and rightfully show the kind of tolerance level we have with whatever knowledge we have at hand. No doubt about that.

Sea water has been used to flush toilet elsewhere for decades. No doubt that corrosion is an issue but it could be overcome. Even if you use non-salt water, water pipes will burst as well. I believe with modern material science, piping could be improved. If sea water is so useless, then distillation plants will not be built without causing problems to the piping system.


Goh Meng Seng

I see you have very poor scientific train of thought, and one does not need to be a practicing scientist or a wise person. Appealing to experts without thought is like blindly appealing to the Bible, Koran or whichever religious texts. I cannot believe you talk like the PAP, making excuses by appealing to some authority without proper understanding

Go read up on ppb and ppm, especially, on VOCs and POPs. Then go read up on water standards from WHO, USA and Singapore.

There is almost no way of ensuring any waters is totally pure. With so many manufactured chemicals out there and released chemicals from the Earth due to our anthropogenic activities, there is no pristine earth, water or air in the world, so to speak. Even in the past, before industrialization, it was never that pure anyway. It was just that humans and lifeforms could expel the substances from their bodies to the extent they could still function properly.

Once you increase the degree of accuracy of measurement, you can typically add another zero in the decimal place. So there goes your 100% pure. It was not too long ago that people were bragging 100% purity or smoothness of materials. Scanning the surface of any material via an electron microscope should change your view.

When you shoot your mouth off about toilet flushing using saltwater, did you ever even bother to consider abrasion and damage to sewage pipe systems? Do you even know that your cooking oil can cause serious abrasive action to sewage pipes? If you are so environmentally conscious, why are you not talking about waterless toilets with resource reclamation from all human excretes? Why not talk about grey, yellow, brown and black water? Why not check with your experts and see what is already being done in OECD, Africa, India and China?

 

[Leegimeremover]

Nope. I am no expert and I don't argue with experts on things that I don't know. Experts are not written text and they are dynamic. Knowledge may not be Truth but it is the best thing we have on hand although knowledge keeps upgrading and changing according new findings. It would be unreasonable to believe in something (even though if objectively, the "Truth" with hindsight) that you don't even know yet by discarding what you know now, by experts in the field.

Yes, water cannot be pure but the question here is not about purity, but rather ridding substances that may have adverse effect on human health.

Water standards are set by human beings and rightfully show the kind of tolerance level we have with whatever knowledge we have at hand. No doubt about that.

Sea water has been used to flush toilet elsewhere for decades. No doubt that corrosion is an issue but it could be overcome. Even if you use non-salt water, water pipes will burst as well. I believe with modern material science, piping could be improved. If sea water is so useless, then distillation plants will not be built without causing problems to the piping system.

Goh Meng Seng

What is your point? We have limited financial and talent resources in the world and more so in Singapore. A good government should implement a good technical and economical policy, using prudent forward financial analysis and accrual accounting. A bad government sells you a good ra-ra show and leaves future voters with a big debts, likely un-payable and social destabilizing. Sure, we can implement titanium piping systems. Do you want to pay for it? Yes, you are right, water pipes do burst. Do you want to pay for a pipe that bursts due to natural wear and tear every 10 years or do you want a titanium pipe does not burst for 100 years but costs 50 times more? Do the math. Let us not forget, Singapore constantly rebuilds infrastructure very fast, for fiscal stimulus, like all country governments do. Want to have a Golden period now at the expense of the next 100 years? USA is doing that right now, but since they are still the de facto currency and bond supplier, tough for every other country.

"...[T]here are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Rumsfeld has some of the fundamentals of the scientific mind though he makes a lousy liar. So since you do not want to argue on science, what do you want to argue on? BTW, we import foods. Crops and most meats, especially organ meats, are probably contaminated with toxins, organic products or not. Nobody knows what level of accumulation in human bodies will kill us or make men grow breasts and women grow beards. Some chemicals are so dispersed in the world and have life-spans so long that for the practical purpose of humanity are permanently in the world ecosystem and can get into the food chain anytime. Do you want to go find all these toxic particles spread all in our eco-system and use a plasma furnace to inactivate them? Oh, you should read up on how recent water safety regulations were legislated in the USA and read the Indonesian water safety regulations which are more comprehensive than US laws. But which water would you drink? Law versus implementation.

I would have let it go if you had argued on the implementation and actual quality standards of water in Singapore rather than engage in criticisms of water technology and standards of the world and drawing Singapore in a biased manner that is unscientific.

BTW, in environmental science and engineering today, it is a multi-disciplinary study in advanced countries. Students touch economics, financial analysis, chemistry, physics, biology, ecology, sociology, psychology, marketing and sometimes political science, as well. People are exposed to be less ignorant than before.

If you really want to help Singaporeans, go get a 3rd party tester and do water sample tests in HDB and private apartments, then tell us.

If you find something that redefines or refutes the law of entropy and find a practical and feasible application for this new redefinition, let me know. I would be more than happy to know it. The possible of immortality and 100% recycling would become a reality.

 

[Goh Meng Seng]

Short sighted indeed.

If money can solve the problem, it is the least problem. When even money cannot solve the problem, then it will be a big problem.

If Malaysia doesn't want to sell us water, then what? No matter how much money you have, you can't get the water you want. The only way is to utilize whatever alternative sources; if it takes more money to rebuild the piping system so that we could use sea water to flush water, saving precious portable water and cutting down our reliance on Malaysian sources, so be it.

You don't need titanium piping, don't worry about that. If other places like Hong Kong can do it, I think Singapore can do better. It is just whether we are willing to do it. And Hong Kong Government don't really charge usage of toilet flushing water; just a fixed charge.

PAP government is losing billions of money already, don't need to remind us that. If it only takes half of what is being lost to build such system, I think it is worth it and this will not become a fiscal liability to our future generation, but rather something we have installed for the benefits of many generations to come. The fixed cost of building such system is one time off with some minimum maintenance costs in future. If we can spend the initial $5billion to build the infrastructure of MRT to benefit many generations to come, I don't see why building the infrastructure of piping to save portable water usage is anything less useful than the rail.

The water treatment technology at this stage is inadequate as there are potential harm in it, regardless of what rules or standards you set. And yes, you are damn right, it is not about what kind of water standards but rather the implementation; but wait, we already know the water treatment technology has its deficiency! Don't even need to talk about implementation because the source is known to be at such deficiency!

If you want to argue about how good or bad water technology is, that doesn't concern me. I am only concern about whether the water treatment technology is as good as they claim and whether it will compromise public health. And so far, many reports and research have pointed out that it still have deficiencies in ridding potentially harmful bio-hormones. If you want to argue with that, then argue with those people who wrote the reports.

Whatever testing, it should be conducted by government funding and findings should be transparent and published. Yes, third party INDEPENDENT testers should be engaged by the government because this concern public health. But as we know, there is no such thing as "independence" in Singapore. No separation of powers, no independence of powers.. and what not. You don't even have independence in press and media to start with. Even if anyone like me is to engage third party tester, the whole machinery will be thrown at the test result if it turns out to be adversary to their claims. Why? The so call "credibility" of the establishment is more important than public interests. Minibond is a fine example; nobody wants to admit that MAS the regulator has done a lousy job and least, remedy the harm done to investors. Never mind about fairness or justice, no matter what, the credibility of the establishment must be intact!

Whether the water treatment process is 100% safety proof or not, I think somebody inside knows very well. If the technology cannot guarantee drink-from-tap safety, then please don't try to sell that idea. I am perfectly ok if the establishment are more reserved in their "selling" and put caution on the potential risk of New Water right from the start but just state that this is the best we can achieve right now. But instead, they go on selling the idea that it is safe to drink right from the plant!

The truth is, the production of New Water is not that big in proportion to our daily consumption. New Water could well be channeled for industrial use instead for the moment, instead for public portable use. The problem I guess, lies in the piping system. It may need modifications to direct such water for industrial use. Apart from the Ulu Pandan plant, I don't think there are specific piping for other industrial parks else where.

I believe our industrial consumption of water is much greater than the amount of New Water that we are producing now. All New Water could well be channeled to them instead of residential usage.

This is the better arrangement rather than selling New Water as some 100% good portable water when the fact is that even scientists aren't even sure what kind of potential harm could that bio-hormone do to our health.

For this one, you don't need great rocket scientist to understand. You don't even need to know economics or political science; just pure common sense.

Goh Meng Seng

 

[Leegimeremover]

Short sighted indeed.
....
For this one, you don't need great rocket scientist to understand. You don't even need to know economics or political science; just pure common sense.

Goh Meng Seng

You seriously do not know what you are talking about and it is pointless to explain to you the geo-politcal considerations about Singapore-Malaysia water to you. I do not like the PAP but I do like Singapore. Your knowledge of RO membrane technology is dated. The bio-hormone thingy is a few generations ago RO membrane, unless you are suggesting we are using the cheap old stuff. And why is doing the tests with independent agencies so difficult for you? You are neither making any political or civil minded sense. Rambling here and then when it comes to action to prove that water is not safe here, you find some excuse like the PAP. If you do not like the water, do not drink and buy imported water. Do you know what impurities do to semi-conductor manufacturing? The industry has less tolerance than your kidneys and you distrust RO distilled water. If you are so obsessed with bio-hormones, lobby for non-use of bio-hormones in food products, separate disposal of bio-hormones and treat at source. Do you see OECD countries doing that extensively yet? You probably drink more bio-hormones in the USA than elsewhere in the world, due to abuse of pharmaceuticals.

People in so many countries are drinking far more compromised water that shortens their life expectancy to less than 50 years old and here you are talking about NewWater and its potential harm to kill. Most of what you eat in Singapore or elsewhere in the world includes substances which we do not know if it will kill us or harm us. So we import everything.......... So do you want to go fasting all your life?

If you are civic minded, you should go read expert papers - the Bible you use to hide behind - and look at the air pollution problem in Singapore for fine particulate matter that is compromising our healths. It is probably more significant than NewWater. Some of that bad air is produced by us and some from neighboring countries and the health impact is real. I do not feel any better if I were to compare ourselves with Hong Kong or PRC. If you suggest growing more trees and greenery in Singapore as a partially mitigating factor to air pollution and heat island effect in this recession, I would say that is a smart idea on a few counts.

Sure be long sighted and do not drink for the next 1 week.

 

[Goh Meng Seng]

You may think the reports on bio-hormone is outdated but it is not. I would say that your confidence in our New Water is really misplaced. If it is really that good, they would not have to put it back to the reservoirs for the dilution process and go through another round of water treatment. And for goodness sake, I will say that whatever I gathered, it is from credible source IN SINGAPORE, not somewhere else and not some generatoins away. Well, anyone can doubt such sources but to me, there are better ways to deal with New Water than using it as portable water.

I do not hate PAP and I love Singapore as well. And for me, I am not someone who like to live under other people's threat. I believe PAP thinks that way too. I will always work with the worst case scenerio. Geo-political consideratoins are dynamic and dependent on people of different time dimension. There is no guarantee that such dynamics will not change over time. Shorted sightedness again.

Your comparison about Industrial standards with human tolerance is really off. Semi-conductor industries is only one of the many industrial usage we have here. I bet washing tyres of lorries do not need portable water, least flushing the toilets.

Actually, you miss the point totally. I didn't say New Water will kill but it may cause illness or unknown effects on human bodies. It would be easier to convince you if New Water really kills but it is more complex. If the existence of bio-hormones causes higher incidents of cancer, it will be more difficult to convince you. It is very difficult to establish such direct relatoinship and of course, it is easier to brush it off totally. But it doesn't mean that this may not be the case.

Personally, I think in Singapore, it is easier to die immediately rather than prolonged illness; if the illness doesn't kill you, the debt due to the high healthcare cost will.

And you are hiding from the proposition here. We could even cut down on the "high technological level" of New Water if normal sewage treatment is used and the water treated is used for toilet flushing. We will just recycle the water to save precious portable water. What we need to do is to invest in the initial construction of a new piping system. That's about all. Or we could even be more effective in saving portable water by using seawater treatment for toilet flushing! For residential consumption, if you really observe and calculate, almost 10% to 20% of water is wasted each day in flushing toilets. Instead of investing in New Water plant to created 5% unknown result of semi-portable water, a cheaper way of conservation of portable water is to use basic treatment for seawater for toilet flushing. You conserve MORE water 20% of portable water with lesser running cost!

If you really want to show off how high tech is Singpaore, continue to produce New Water but channel it for industrial usage. If you could produce enough water for industrial usage, you will save another 20% or more of the portable water! There is absolutely no necessity to put public health to risk in the name of "self sufficiency". Feeding New Water to our people should be the last resort.

But just because you want to stinch on the initial investment in reconfiguring the piping system, you want Singaporeans to drink New Water!

Granted that there are many places in the world which have water of lower quality for consumption. No doubt about that. But what we are looking at here is the ways to conerve portable water and the necessity to risk public health to achieve this. The idea should be conserving portable water rather than creating more sources for portable water at this stage. These are two different ideas and concepts, although the final aim is self sufficiency in water supply.

Goh Meng Seng

 

[Leegimeremover]

........
Goh Meng Seng

First, who is you? I do not bloody represent the government and you sure as hell do not represent the opposition and I will vote any opposition member but you in the next election. Industrial water and seawater use has been considered more than 2 decades ago. BTW industrial water is not NewWater. You do not want to drink it. You have no basic idea of water treatment and water quality, you jump for synthetic hormones and pharmaceuticals.

You have no idea what is potable water, distilled water, industrial waste water, sea water, household waste water. You are mixing things up talking about some fuddy duddy thing when we are talking about science. To make you feel better, you have already been drinking water tainted with pharmaceuticals, like many people before the advent of NewWater in many countries. You still could be when you are drinking bottled water. Bottled water does not need to conform to WHO standards.

Please do not mix your political religion with empirical science. What are the toxicity levels you are talking about? Why not talk about eating from teflon pan cooked foods or using plastic bags. There is scientific evidence for cause of concern using such materials. Plastic bags are very very bad for fish and have caused abnormal changes to fish which people eat.

If you have the ppm data, say it out, and which pharmaceutical products or synthetic hormones in question. There are countless pharmaceuticals in the world that we are already exposed to in higher concentration in manufactured foods that the government closes its eyes to import in. Toxicology is already complicated a subject, we do not need mindless panic created for political sensationalism. If there are particular hormones that concern you list them out. I would be more interested if you could tell me how hospital medical equipment and pharmaceutical products are disposed. I really did not check it out in Singapore. Regulations can be strict in some countries but most countries are very sloppy with needles with HIV, equipment with radioactive components and toxic chemicals. Do not hide behind your reliable source because there are people here with reliable technical knowledge that know better than you.

Like I said, it is best you do your independent water tests first. You should know that in EU, the reality of water quality is far worse than what they officially claim. You think only the Singapore government is less than honest? Wait till you see how they do recycling and water treatment and perform not in my backyard policies. Why don't you go champion wealth and poverty issues? Water is beyond you and like I said, air will kill you faster. You can go and search off the internet how much health care costs are incurred with bad air and how many people die. You have no sense of proportion.

If you want to whistle blow, state the substances straight out. Do not beat round the bush. In science, anything not disproved by undoctored and unbiased empirical studies are not wrong, in general. That does not mean people in the scientific community say it is right. Basic scientific thinking is way beyond you. Until the empirical data against NewWater is found, it is not wrong to say NewWater confirms to the standards for selected variables tested. Oh, you can die by drinking too much of any water you find so safe in terms of any water standards that you subscribe to. It is called water intoxication.

 

[DIVISION1]

You may think the reports on bio-hormone is outdated but it is not. I would say that your confidence in our New Water is really misplaced. If it is really that good, they would not have to put it back to the reservoirs for the dilution process and go through another round of water treatment. And for goodness sake, I will say that whatever I gathered, it is from credible source IN SINGAPORE, not somewhere else and not some generatoins away. Well, anyone can doubt such sources but to me, there are better ways to deal with New Water than using it as portable water.

I do not hate PAP and I love Singapore as well. And for me, I am not someone who like to live under other people's threat. I believe PAP thinks that way too. I will always work with the worst case scenerio. Geo-political consideratoins are dynamic and dependent on people of different time dimension. There is no guarantee that such dynamics will not change over time. Shorted sightedness again.

Your comparison about Industrial standards with human tolerance is really off. Semi-conductor industries is only one of the many industrial usage we have here. I bet washing tyres of lorries do not need portable water, least flushing the toilets.

Actually, you miss the point totally. I didn't say New Water will kill but it may cause illness or unknown effects on human bodies. It would be easier to convince you if New Water really kills but it is more complex. If the existence of bio-hormones causes higher incidents of cancer, it will be more difficult to convince you. It is very difficult to establish such direct relatoinship and of course, it is easier to brush it off totally. But it doesn't mean that this may not be the case.

Personally, I think in Singapore, it is easier to die immediately rather than prolonged illness; if the illness doesn't kill you, the debt due to the high healthcare cost will.

And you are hiding from the proposition here. We could even cut down on the "high technological level" of New Water if normal sewage treatment is used and the water treated is used for toilet flushing. We will just recycle the water to save precious portable water. What we need to do is to invest in the initial construction of a new piping system. That's about all. Or we could even be more effective in saving portable water by using seawater treatment for toilet flushing! For residential consumption, if you really observe and calculate, almost 10% to 20% of water is wasted each day in flushing toilets. Instead of investing in New Water plant to created 5% unknown result of semi-portable water, a cheaper way of conservation of portable water is to use basic treatment for seawater for toilet flushing. You conserve MORE water 20% of portable water with lesser running cost!

If you really want to show off how high tech is Singpaore, continue to produce New Water but channel it for industrial usage. If you could produce enough water for industrial usage, you will save another 20% or more of the portable water! There is absolutely no necessity to put public health to risk in the name of "self sufficiency". Feeding New Water to our people should be the last resort.

But just because you want to stinch on the initial investment in reconfiguring the piping system, you want Singaporeans to drink New Water!

Granted that there are many places in the world which have water of lower quality for consumption. No doubt about that. But what we are looking at here is the ways to conerve portable water and the necessity to risk public health to achieve this. The idea should be conserving portable water rather than creating more sources for portable water at this stage. These are two different ideas and concepts, although the final aim is self sufficiency in water supply.

Goh Meng Seng

I am glad to hear that you love the PAP. Your support and faith in the PAP is the right choice. Oh dear, do you mean that NEWater is unsafe for consumption? If you have the relevant information please do not hesitate to have them submitted to the governing authorities for verification. You would be doing Singaporeans and Singapore a great national service. Saving lives is important in Singapore as every individual citizen is a vital resource

 

[Goh Meng Seng]

I really don't know what you are rambling about, really.

Simple propositions, conserve portable water but you go one round but saying nothing! Let me start fromt the simplest. Do you agree toilet flushing use up 10 to 20% of portable water in Singapore? Simple as that. Get a replacement of portable water used in flushing toilet, you save that 20% of portable water. Do you need New Water which is more expensive to produce than water for flushing toilet? It is just common sense. Using less variable cost to conserve more on portable water!

The only problem, of course is initial piping cost. For this one, I have already dealt with.

If you choose to believe New Water is ALL GOOD FOR CONSUMPTION, that is your own believe. And yes, we have been taking in quite a lot of toxin in modern living already, no need to add to it.

But the crux of the matter is not even about whether New Water is good for your consumption! It is about cost effective and efficient ways of conserving portable water in the long run. You only look at the short term cost of reconfiguring the piping system but refuse to see the long term benefits of conserving portable water in the long run! That is why I say you are short sighted.

As I have said before, New Water is not cost effective and the existence of bio-hormone with unknown impact is itself a risk factor. Whatever unknown outcome, is a risk. We pay higher cost to create New Water which in turn has to be channeled back to the reservoirs and go through the normal water treatment again. This is double treatment costing. For whatever amount of New Water you create, trying to supplement portable water, you could do it with less cost using cheaper water treatment method to produce water for toilet flushing! The effect of supplement/conservatoin to/of portable water is the same but the cost is much lesser! What is wrong with this? Could you reason it out?

Let me put it this way. The infrastructure cost of reconfiguring the piping system may be huge and born by the government, but in the long run, with the savings of less costly water supplements to flush water, Singapore will benefits from generatoins to generations. Of course, the only difference is the government bear the cost now while citizens benefit relatively lower cost of portable water.

I really do not know why you are so obsessed with New Water as water supplement and trying to justify using it with all sorts of funny excuses like other countries have lower quality water or we are having more poisonous air. Really strange and irrelevant argument to me. Human beings strive to be better, not to be worse or worse, feeling complacent by comparing to the worse. It really reminds me about PAP always want to boast about its achievements by comparing Singapore to the worse third world countries, instead of looking at how we could improve (of course, that would expose their own deficiencies) comparing to the more developed countries.

I am not mixing up the concept. As far as I am concerned, I am very clear in the concept. I have even told you that we are looking at the problem from two very different angles; conservation of portable water by means of replacement of water for toilet flushing and industrial use vs looking for portable water supplement like New Water.

Well, to me, unless it is totally necessary to force our citizens to drink New Water which is more costly (with double treatment processes), I would prefer alternative methods which could be less costly and more effective. Is there anything wrong with such strategy?

And last but not least, I really don't mind about people keep talking about not wanting to vote for me because ultimately whoever you vote is what you deserve. Of course, not everyone that you vote would want to be responsible for your well being.

Goh Meng Seng

 

[Goh Meng Seng]

I am glad to hear that you love the PAP. Your support and faith in the PAP is the right choice. Oh dear, do you mean that NEWater is unsafe for consumption? If you have the relevant information please do not hesitate to have them submitted to the governing authorities for verification. You would be doing Singaporeans and Singapore a great national service. Saving lives is important in Singapore as every individual citizen is a vital resource

Sorry Division1,

I do not hate PAP does not mean I love PAP. It coud well mean that I dislike PAP but not to the extend of hating them.

Goh Meng Seng

 

[Leegimeremover]

I really don't know what you are rambling about, really.

Simple propositions, conserve portable water but you go one round but saying nothing! Let me start fromt the simplest. Do you agree toilet flushing use up 10 to 20% of portable water in Singapore? Simple as that. Get a replacement of portable water used in flushing toilet, you save that 20% of portable water. Do you need New Water which is more expensive to produce than water for flushing toilet? It is just common sense. Using less variable cost to conserve more on portable water!

Goh Meng Seng

First, you are the one rambling. If you work with waterless toilets you can convert existing toilets effectively. Large scale production is making payback possible in a shorter time. Waterless toilets potentially saves more and we need less investment costs as compared with an alternate piping system for all residential units.

Next, you have no understanding natural nor urban water cycle and that we use very little of the water that comes to us and most of it gets flushed away
into the sea. This includes rainwater. You use less than 10 percent of the water that comes into your house. The remaining slightly contaminated water gets flushed away into sea ultimately.

DO NOT TRY TO EXPLAIN SCIENCE OR YOUR POLICIES TO ME. YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT FROM BASIC TECHNOLOGY, COST ANALYSIS AND SAFETY. NEwater is not supposed to cost close to 2 dollars per cubic metre. The actual production is cost is definitely much lower. You should be asking the government why it is so expensive. Other countries doing it are far cheaper, including seawater RO technology. You are looking more and more lame. Please do not try to look more foolish and quit.
I am glad you are not in parliament.

 

[Bigfuck]

Wah, fuck! I come in here and see wah lan war fucking around here! Wah! Real Goh Meng Seng or not? So eng ar! Are you that fuck Leethasar or PAP IB? Wah lao, online so often. You no need work ar? Fuck, I have to work, sometimes too. You must be fucking rich rite? Please do not be Leethasar the fucker. At least, TeeKee is fucking entertaining. You and Leethasar are not.

 

[myo539]

Is there any research to find out that the kang kong and chye sim and durian that you eat did not completely remove the chicken shit that they take in to make them grow faster?

 

[Goh Meng Seng]

Apparently there is no science involves here. Just common sense. I am even explaining science to you but stating a plain fact, there isn't a need for New Water in the very first place.

Black cat white cat, which one catch the rat faster and easier is a good cat. If you claim you can convert toilets into "waterless toilets" with lower cost, so be it. But seriously, I don't see how it could work in large scale collection and treatment of sewage.

New Water does not "conserve" portable water but instead, increase the cost of producing portable water. That's my point. It is economic sense, not even science is needed here. The main reason is New Water is treated as RAW WATER supplements here as it is being channeled back to the reservoirs for dilution and then reprocessed again. Compare to 50 cents of same amount of raw water, $2 is 4 times of that! That's the point.

Re-configuration of piping system will have many advantages, not just for toilets but for people who want to use non-portable water for their other needs. Flushing toilets may just be only one of them.

Now you go on rambling again, on what percentage of water being flush away to the sea. The truth is, after New Water is produced, it is channeled to the reservoirs and guess how much of that is being evaporated by the sun? Is this an effective and efficient way of producing water supplements? Whether it is New Water or just raw water, there will also be wastage along the line. So what is your point?

I think people like you are just engrossed with high technology. If you could solve the present problem with much cost effective and efficient method using lower technology, why not? Why are you hanging on something which is pretty clear more expensive? This really sounds strange to me.

In Singapore's context, there are rooms for water conservation strategy to be carried out first. There are potentially 30% of portable water could be conserved EVERY MINUTE EVERY WEEK EVERY MONTH EVER YEAR EVERY GENERATIONS! Simple as that.

Goh Meng Seng

 

[Zombie]

There are potentially 30% of portable water could be conserved EVERY MINUTE EVERY WEEK EVERY MONTH EVER YEAR EVERY GENERATIONS! Simple as that.

Where you get the numbers ie 10%-20% water for toilet flushing (your earlier post) and 30% of portable water could be conserved?

And you mean saltwater to flush toilets would save 10% + 20% = 30% ??

 

[Leegimeremover]

Apparently there is no science involves here. Just common sense. I am even explaining science to you but stating a plain fact, there isn't a need for New Water in the very first place.

Black cat white cat, which one catch the rat faster and easier is a good cat. If you claim you can convert toilets into "waterless toilets" with lower cost, so be it. But seriously, I don't see how it could work in large scale collection and treatment of sewage.

New Water does not "conserve" portable water but instead, increase the cost of producing portable water. That's my point. It is economic sense, not even science is needed here. The main reason is New Water is treated as RAW WATER supplements here as it is being channeled back to the reservoirs for dilution and then reprocessed again. Compare to 50 cents of same amount of raw water, $2 is 4 times of that! That's the point.

Re-configuration of piping system will have many advantages, not just for toilets but for people who want to use non-portable water for their other needs. Flushing toilets may just be only one of them.

Now you go on rambling again, on what percentage of water being flush away to the sea. The truth is, after New Water is produced, it is channeled to the reservoirs and guess how much of that is being evaporated by the sun? Is this an effective and efficient way of producing water supplements? Whether it is New Water or just raw water, there will also be wastage along the line. So what is your point?

I think people like you are just engrossed with high technology. If you could solve the present problem with much cost effective and efficient method using lower technology, why not? Why are you hanging on something which is pretty clear more expensive? This really sounds strange to me.

In Singapore's context, there are rooms for water conservation strategy to be carried out first. There are potentially 30% of portable water could be conserved EVERY MINUTE EVERY WEEK EVERY MONTH EVER YEAR EVERY GENERATIONS! Simple as that.

Goh Meng Seng

Clearly, you are the rambling and have no common sense. You know nothing and are thickheaded. You are the one that talks about high level technology and science, but get exposed as a fraud. Do you know how much does a water urinal cost today, do you know how cheap it can get with large scale production? Do even know it is already being used in many public places? Sure, go save the 30% with costs far greater than that with alternative pipe installation and maintenance. You pay? Toilets have been identified for water conservation so long ago. You think you are the only one who thinks about water conservation and the government of Singapore is sleeping or the rest of the world never considered your idea. Stop being a clown. You are a threat to this country if you become a policy maker. No sense of sunk costs, operating costs, cost comparisons. So now you want to weasel from science. Give me your cost calculations and comparison breakdown. Can balance S$45 per person/per year (the equivalent of your 30%) in his entire 85 years of life expectancy with your investment and maintenance cost of alternative pipes, factoring rising water costs? Since you want to show off your coffee
shop drunk uncle maths of $2, show me! BTW, I have very good respect for common sense maths of some hawkers. Some understand business maths very well, as good as high level business executives.