LITERATURE REVIEW
The review is related to the research because it will help us to find the opinions singaporeans have towards drinking NEWater. Also, we can find tips on how to represent our data once we finish the research. I will be discussing the point of this research and why we are doing it.
We are doing research on the opinions of singaporeans have about drinking NEWater as some may be quite skeptical drinking water from their own toilet bowl and rain water. They may be angry with Singapore’s government.
From one website, I have gathered that NEWater is an efficient way of managing water resources in Singapore, since Singapore have little natural resources, but yet, the reusing of resources factor has been associated with people being disgusted with it thinking that it is very unhygienic. Hence, this common cited factor of disgust towards NEWater had been a difficult obstacle to NEWater. However, there are agreements among some water experts that the lack of water is not of poor governance, but physical lack. When NEWater just started construction, and many people violently objected to it, as they thought recycle water was dirty and might cause diseases. [Ching, 2010]
In a website, it was titled, ‘Would you drink this water’ and in the first few paragraphs it emphasized that the water does not come from springs but from the toilet bowl and yet the writer praised NEWater that that it is a new water-treatment system. It can filter out microscopic bacteria and by the time the wastewater is processed, the clean water meets all the drinking-water standards specified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization. However, the writer mostly did not like something like NEWater in his/her home country, America, as the writer and other americans so not fancy the thought of drinking their own waste water. Yet, the writer also feels that this technology can save many lives as 20% of the world do not have clean water to drink and 400 children per hour is dying from water-borne diseases. [Pikul, 2004]
In another website, the writer found it ridiculous for the Singapore government to want they voters to drink treated waste water. The government did the NEWater campaign very carefully to ensure the water was safe to drink. Since, NEWater was the fourth national tap, besides importing water from Malaysia, running desalination plants, and collecting rainfall through storm-water harvesting. The government know that there was going to be a lot of psychological resistance to NEWater and they knew that they had to send more than a statement of ‘Its safe to drink’ but rather to pitch a message to the country. [Sydney Morning Herald, 2008]
In a particular article, it was written that cleaned-up sewage water is nobody’s first choice for drinking water, but yet, in Singapore, the NEWater plant has became a destination for tourists and citizens. The majority of the public has accepted the concept of drinking treated sewage water as it is cleaned up properly and then blended with reservoir water, giving the NEWater water the ‘water’ taste that people have come to recognize. Since the technology of recycling water has existed for decades, the citizens, PRs and work permit holders trust NEWater more. [Galbraith, 2012]
This is my literature review on the opinions of Singaporeans drinking NEWater.
References:
Leong Ching. (2010). Eliminating ‘Yuck’: A Simple Exposition
of Media and Social Change in Water Reuse Policies. Retrieved from http://www.spp.nus.edu.sg/docs/Asiasia/2011/Leong_Ching-Eliminating-Yuck.pdf
Corrie Pikul. (2004). Would you drink this water?. Retrieved from http://www.salon.com/2004/10/22/big_idea_10_22/
The Sydney Morning Herald. (2008). Treated sewage as water? They'll drink to that. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/treated-sewage-as-water-theyll-drink-to-that/2008/06/26/1214472673486.html
Kate Galbraith. (2012). Taking the Ick Factor Out of Recycled Water. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/26/business/global/26iht-green26.html?_r=0
Done By: Chua Tuan Jin (12)
Class: S2-07
No comments:
Post a Comment