Sewage-to-Drinking Water System Readied for Luxury Singapore Resort Island
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY 
on 11.18.09
photo: Shahram Sharif via flickr.
Now this is extreme water recycling: Dallas, Texas-based Global Water Group has installed its first sewage-to-drinking water system on the Singaporean island of Pulau Seringat, Greentech Media reports. Originally developed for military applications, similar systems have been deployed on oil rigs and for special events, this system will process 2,500 gallons of wastewater a day into potable water for luxury hotel guests:
Previous military applications include skid-mounted units such as this one, and ones small enough to fit in a backpack and be parachuted in for long-range recon operations. Photo: Global Water Group
Three-Stage Purification Process
According the the Global Water Group website, the purification system uses a three step process: 1) Filter the water, capturing parasites such as giardia, cryptosporidium, amoebas, and anything larger than 1 micron in size; 2) remove hazardous chemicals (VOCs, chlorine, arsenic, mercury, lead, chromium) and bacteria; 3) use UV light to kill microbes
Provided that all goes well with the initial installation on Pulau Seringat, Global Water says more units may be installed at the same location or at other locations in Singapore.
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That red island is Sentosa; Palau Seringat is just off that island, too small to be shown on this map. Map: Wikipedia
Thousands of Cubic Meters of Sand Imported to Create Beach
Pulau Seringat is part of Singapore's so-called Southern Islands, of which Sentosa Island is the main one. Which is seems to imply some sort of remoteness, but really are just across a relatively small channel from the main part of Singapore.
Some of the islands are land reclamation efforts, and in the case of Pulau Seringat its now nearly kilometer-long beach was created by the importation of thousands of cubic meters of sand from Indonesia and the planting of one thousand mature coconut trees.
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