How is SINGAPORE ending its WATER SHORTAGE? - VisualPolitik EN

Despite being one of the countries with the highest rainfall in the world, the truth is that Singapore suffers from a significant water shortage and depends on the purchase of water from Malaysia. However, they have drawn up a plan to make Singapore not only self-sufficient but also to become a commercial powerhouse of technology that allows an almost unlimited supply of water.

In this video we give you all the details about Singapore's latest revolution.

[succubus]

While it was painted as though Singapore was fleecing Malaysia, the video overlooked 2 key points (which Malaysia politicians also like to overlook) when talking about this issue. (1) Singapore bore the full cost of making it possible to import water from Malaysia (there was no help from Malaysia, even though it was a far richer country in the past) including dams, pumps, pipes and other compensation to stakeholders. (2) The cost for Singapore to treat the water was RM2.40 (which means Singapore made a loss of RM1.90 after the mandated price of RM0.50). Malaysia then resells the water back to their citizens at RM3.95 (effectively making a profit of RM3.45 with little to no effort)... Singapore had also supplied more water when requested (effectively taking more loss while the Malaysia government made more profit)...

[Deadyu]

One thing that separates Singapore from its counterparts is that the government has largely been proactive with critical infrastructure. They know what's important and take long, careful steps to carry out their plans. Not like other governments where its all reactionary and based on what voters want

[lordndrew]

I think you forgot to mention how Singapore infrastructure is optimised to retain maximal rainfall, such as our canals, and drainage system linkups.

[justintimeleave]

One thing you overlooked is Singapore separated the waste water systems from the beginning which though was a huge upfront cost started paying dividends as technology improved and singapore could optimise cleaning strategies which is why so many other countries fail to adopt a similar strategy due to legacy water infrastructure that mix all waste water together

[holycrapchris]

11:41 - "When we talk about water scarcity, what we really mean is water mismanagement." Bingo.
Singapore's actions -- recycling water and increasing its price -- are the right moves.

[christopherloh]

Singapore got very smart people to run their country & I greatly admire them.

[leeyongjin]

Dont forget it costs Singapore RM2.40 to maintain the dam and treat every thousand gallon of water. By selling at 50 sen, Singapore is providing a subsidy of RM1.90 per thousand gallons of water and the malaysian govt knows this :(

[veekwok]

Singapore is indeed a prosperous and well-managed city state. The government is always planning way ahead. Besides tackling the water supply problem, they are always setting targets to solve or mitigate future problems such as food sufficiency, energy sufficiency, climate change and global warming. While some cities around the world are sinking, Singapore is already working on the problem of rising sea level and devise a $100 billion plan to protect its coastal areas from flooding.

[andrewsamuelson]

I got to visit NEWater when I was a kid in the early 2000’s... it blew my young mind then, and it continues to blow my mind now. Majulah Singapura!

[glennchartrand]

What matters isn't how much it rains, it's how long the water sticks around after it rains.

[luisdestefano]

The video omits several important considerations: whilst used water can be recycled or obtained from the sea, both require substantial investments and a high selling price of the produced water. Additionally significant amounts of energy for the process. This works in a very rich country like Singapore, but it is not a straightforward solution to poor countries like India. Hats off to the island state for its ingenuity!

[IKEMENOsakaman]

Absolutely love Singapore, the most amazing place in the world, have been visiting since the early 80s, hope to go again when this horrible crap in the world abates. So much love from Osaka, Japan...Stay safe my friends....

[dr.gaosclassroom]

I have been to Singapore many times and enjoyed my time there immensely. It is so well-planned and maintained city state. Although it is quite small but it feels spacious with plenty of vegetation and trees lined the street. It is a wonderful place to live!!😀😀😀

[randyg]

The engineers in charge of the project actually went to the more developed western countries to seek help and collaboration, but was rejected by all of them, with one in the US accusing the team of stealing their company's patent. After a few years, the project realized that, like many other things in life: if you want something done, do it yourself. From there onward, the team went out plan, design and developed the whole new-water thingy.
During that time period when the government tried to push the new-water concept to all of Singapore, the kids at school are given the presentation of the concept of new-water. In very dumb down wording by the engineers explaining to us kids: "We use your pee/waste, heat and clean it till it is water, then heat and clean again till it is drinkable. " . After that, bottled new-water are given to public school for free consumption for a period of time., then the bottled water is slowly introduced to the public in government-related events as free gift and such.
Initially there are some who are against the new-water concept but slowly forgotten as time went on. The new--water is so great that the government listed the new-water plant as one of the national sites to visit if one is accepted as a Singapore citizen.
Singapore is slowly becoming self-sustaining when it comes to water issue, there have been no water shortages in Singapore for the longest period of time, and the tap water can be consume directly unlike the neighboring countries. Sure, the cost of water is going to rise further in the future when/if Singapore do not renew the water contact with Malaysia, with time we will slowly integrate. With high standard of living, comes high cost as they say.

[TK]

In the US, in the state of California, Orange County (the place where Disneyland, not world land is) has been recycling toilet water for years for domestic use. They didn't make a big deal about it and so most people still don't know. The reason the OC did it was not actually about drought. The OC still gets a lot of its drinking water from underground reservoirs. The problem is over the last century many industrial factories have existed in and around the OC. At the end of the 1990's pollutants from long gone factories started making it down to the ground water (which is deep in Socal). It got to the point that it was literally safer to recycle toilet water, then to try and clean the water coming out of the ground. It's just a side effect that the OC doesn't face water mandatory water restrictions like a lot of Socal. It still follows them in solidarity with the rest of region. But the OC has been selling it's treated water to surrounding counties for decades now. Which is ironic because the OC asked surrounding counties to join the bond issue to build the recycling plants and it would share the water. The surrounding counties thought it was too extreme and declined.

[victor]

Mind is still blown that the rainiest countries can suffer water shortages. Goes to show that man is constantly at odds with nature no matter what.

[tttan]

Singapore pay for the dam, pay for the pipes, pay for the land, pay for the workers in MALAYSIA, subsidize the treated water back to Malaysia, at the end of the contract, give everything including plants, dams all back to Malaysia. Malaysia sits there, no need pay workers, no need mantain pipes, plants etc. Get money. Yes very good neighbor and unfair ya.

[xiphoid]

As a chinese person who grew up in China and US, I really enjoyed my stay in Singapore. For me, it's even better than the US and way better than China.

[oldtabrough]

We are also buying green electricity (solar energy) from Australia. It's a massive project expected to be completed by 2026

[Sky-]

Yet majority American still think Singapore is china..