GWI Newsletter -- Gates Bet on Non-Piped Sanitation (Part 1)

I'm a big fan of GWI's reports as I think they give a balanced review of the water business and technologies, and in terms that most laymen can understand.  As usual, this issue is a fantastic summary of everything that happened in the water world in the last month, and I've picked out some things that really caught my attention. 

To me, technology is to Bill Gates what the stock market is to Warren Buffett.  So when the Gates Foundation recently upgraded the status of water, sanitation and hygiene to full programme status, and announced that they would be focusing on "non-piped sanitation", I thought I ought to pause and think about it. 

Decentralised sanitation -- actually decentralised anything -- is somewhat of a sacred cow in Singapore. People seldom dare suggest it.  We are very proud of the low unit costs we have managed to achieve due to the economies of scale of centralised rainwater harvesting, used water treatment, and water recycling.  And perhaps rightly so, seeing as we're so densely packed and piping costs are probably only a small proportion of total costs.  

Very recently, though, we are recognising that there is a large and growing global demand for decentralised systems, and that we'd better get in on the act.  And so decentralised systems have been proposed on Jurong Island and at the Cleantech Park (kudos to JTC), both of which are located in the far West of Singapore, where sanitation services are a tad bit more sparse.  But the actual systems that will eventually be tested are probably going to be just miniature versions of tried and tested technologies like the membrane bioreactors.  GWI argues this is not truly a non-piped solution since it doesn't include the capturing of used water. 

The ultimate non-piped solution, I suppose, would be a treatment device that can be attached to all water fittings and connected to the potable water network so that the used water is literally recycled on-site.  But that makes me ever so squeamish.  I'm not so sure I'm ready for direct and continuous consumption of recycled water.

Main Source: Gates Goes Down the Pan