How Singapore Got People to Drink Its New Water
发布时间 2023-03-30 23:00:04 来源
摘要
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When people visit Singapore for the first time and make YouTube videos about it, they often mention how they can't chew gum there, which inevitably leads to corrective YouTube comments saying that chewing gum is legal, but selling gum is not. Good stuff. But one thing that caught my attention recently was learning that 30-40% of Singapore's water supply is recycled wastewater, a percentage that will grow to 55% in the near future. So Singaporeans drink their own, albeit recycled wastewater? That's interesting. How did that happen? New water is a brand of recycled wastewater, first introduced to the water supply in 2003 by Singapore's Public Utilities Board or PUB.
当人们第一次访问新加坡并制作YouTube视频时，他们经常提到新加坡禁止嚼口香糖，这不可避免地导致纠正性的YouTube评论，说嚼口香糖是合法的，但售卖口香糖是不合法的。很好的事情。但最近引起我的注意的一件事是，新加坡30-40％的水供应是再生水，这个比例将在不久的将来增长到55％。所以新加坡人喝他们自己的，虽然是再循环利用的废水？这很有趣。这是怎么发生的？新水是再循环利用的废水品牌，由新加坡公用事业局或PUB在2003年首次引入供水系统。
Obviously all water is recycled via the Earth's water cycle, but you might react a little viscerally when you ponder about where that water in a bottle might have been just a few weeks ago. So yeah, the interesting thing to me was how PUB got widespread acceptance of their new water. In this brief video, let us drink in a bit about Singapore's new water initiative. But first I want to remind you about the newsletter. Check out the newsletter to read the entire scripts for previously released videos, including those you might not have seen before. The sign up link is in the video description below. I try to put one out once every week, maybe two. Alright, back to the show.
很明显，所有的水都是通过地球的水循环循环利用的，但当你考虑这个瓶子里的水可能只是几周前的，你可能会有点本能反应。所以，对我来说有趣的是 PUB 如何让他们的新水得到广泛接受。在这个简短的视频中，让我们了解一下新加坡的新水计划吧。但首先，我想提醒您查看我们的通讯。点击视频描述下面的链接注册通讯，您可以阅读以前发布的视频的完整脚本，包括您之前可能没有看过的视频。我会尽量每周发布一次，也许两次。好了，回到节目。
Our modern municipal sewage systems first emerged in the 1800s as a public health measure. Maybe the most famous is London's. Heavy industrialization and urbanization were contaminating the water supply, leading to big cholera outbreaks in 1832, 1849, and 1855. Then we had the baddest sounds, great stink of 1858, where hot weather and human waste in the river Thames caused a titanic smell. This smell or myasma was thought to be the cause for the aforementioned cholera outbreaks. This finally prompted the London authorities to assign Sir Joseph William Bazelgetti, the colossally expensive task of building a modern sewage system. It worked, though not exactly for the reasons thought so, at the time.
我们现代的市政污水处理系统最早出现在19世纪，作为公共卫生措施之一。其中最著名的是伦敦的系统。重工业化和城市化导致水源受到污染，引发了1832年、1849年和1855年的霍乱大爆发。随后出现了1858年的大臭气事件，炎热的天气和泰晤士河里的人类排泄物造成了巨大的臭味。当时人们认为这种气味或恶臭是前述霍乱爆发的原因。这最终促使伦敦当局指派掌管巨额开支的Joseph William Bazelgetti爵士建造一个现代化的污水处理系统。这个系统确实起到了作用，但不完全是当时认为的原因。
Wastewater refers to water with its quality affected by human activities. There is industrial wastewater discharged from industrial locations like your semiconductor fab. This water is usually treated on site per regulations before being discharged to the sewers. And then there is domestic or municipal wastewater. This comes from homes, schools, hospitals, and places like malls. This wastewater is mostly made up of three things. One soaps and detergents. Two grey water from showers, sinks, and clothes washing. Three black water from toilet flushes, which does include human poo poo and pee pee.
废水是指受人类活动影响而质量受到影响的水。工业废水来自于类似于半导体晶圆制造工厂等工业场所排放的水。通常情况下，这种水会在符合法规的情况下进行现场处理后再排入下水道。此外，还有家庭或市政废水。这种废水来自于家庭、学校、医院以及像商场一样的地方。这种废水主要由三种物质组成。一、洗衣机和清洁剂。二、来自淋浴、洗脸盆和洗衣服的灰水。三、来自厕所冲洗的黑水，其中包括人类排泄物和尿液。
For this and all other types of wastewater, you treat it using one of three types of treatments. Physical treatment, sedimentation, screening, filtration, and so on, for the removal of suspended solids. Chemical treatment, where we add chemicals to remove solids, disinfect, and remove phosphorus. And, biological treatment, this is where we use microorganisms to remove biodegradable organic matter in the water to an acceptable level. Today all sewage is treated to a certain degree, but wastewater treatment plants can put the wastewater through an assortment of stages to get that water to a certain quality.
对于这种以及其他类型的废水，可以使用三种类型的处理方法进行处理。物理处理，如沉淀、筛选、过滤等，用于去除悬浮物。化学处理，通过添加化学药剂来去除固体物、消毒和去除磷。生物处理，利用微生物将水中的可生物降解有机物质降至可接受水平。尽管现在所有污水都被处理到一定程度，但是污水处理厂可以将废水通过一系列的阶段得到一定的水质。
A preliminary and primary stage, which use a variety of physical and chemical treatments to remove suspended solids. And there is a secondary treatment for removing nutrients like nitrogen, such nutrient removal has become increasingly important. After that we have tertiary and advanced treatment stages targeting specific items. These are needed if we want to use the water for something like drinking. At least half of America's water treatment plants treat water up to the secondary stage. For many cities this is good enough, and the water is then tossed into a natural body of water like a river or a lake.
水处理的初步和主要阶段使用各种物理和化学处理方法来除去悬浮固体。还有一个用于去除氮等养分的二次处理，这样的养分去除变得越来越重要。之后我们就有了针对特定项目的三级和高级处理阶段。如果我们想要将水用于像饮用水这样的用途，这些步骤是必要的。美国至少一半的水处理厂将水处理到达二次阶段。对于许多城市来说，这已经足够了，然后将水倒入自然水体，如河流或湖泊中。
This might be a bit of a waste. For instance, in Water Starved California, a 2018 study found that 1407 mega gallons of treated wastewater, or effluent as it is called, is tossed into the ocean or used for irrigation and industry. This is equivalent to some 35% of the state's domestic demand, and we just throw that in a nature or even the ocean, which I think has no shortage of water. Of course the very significant reason why we have this situation is the Yuck Factor associated with drinking recycled wastewater. The key phrase that has come up again and again is, Toilet to Tap. Originated by a member of Miller Brewing's PR staff, it first appeared in a Los Angeles Times story in 1993.
这可能有点浪费。例如，在缺水的加利福尼亚州，2018年的一项研究发现，1407兆加仑的废水被扔进了海洋或用于灌溉和工业。这相当于该州国内需求的35%，而我们仅将其扔进了大自然甚至海洋，这些地方我认为并不缺水。当然，我们出现这种情况的一个非常重要的原因是人们将饮用再生废水与“厕所到水龙头”联系起来。这个关键的短语一再出现，最早由米勒啤酒公司的公关人员提出，在1993年的洛杉矶时报报道中首次出现。
The phrase goes viral all over the newspaper media. Miller coined it to protest and reclaimed water project in Southern California's San Gabriel Valley at the time, but this backfired on them and they withdrew the campaign. The phrase bob back up again in 2000 in the San Fernando Valley, an urbanized area in Los Angeles County.
这个短语在各大报纸媒体上迅速传播开来。当时米勒创造它是为了抗议南加州圣加布里埃尔谷地的一个再生水项目，但这个举动失败了，他们撤回了这个运动。然而，在2000年，这个短语又在洛杉矶县的城市化区域圣费尔南多谷地重新浮出水面。
Since 1990, the area's Department of Water and Power had been building a pipeline that would use reclaimed water to recharge the local aquifer. Seemingly uncontroversial, the project dripped along as normal into a homeowner went to a local paper telling them that the department was poisoning the water supply. The paper ran daily stories of all the horrible things that happened to people who drank reclaimed water.
自1990年起，该地区的供水和电力部门一直在建造一个管道，该管道将使用回收水来补充当地的蓄水层。这个项目看起来没有争议，所以它一直按照正常速度进行，直到有一个业主向当地一家报纸表示该部门正在毒害水源。该报纸每天报道喝回收水后对人们造成的可怕事情。
Despite already spending $55 million, Mayor James Han turned the project off. Similar stories have occurred in Tampa Bay, Florida, and San Diego, California. Neighboring Orange County receives 100 million gallons a day of reclaimed water. One of that is used for drinking or tap.
尽管已经花费了5500万美元，市长詹姆斯·韩还是决定停止这个项目。类似的事情也发生在佛罗里达州坦帕湾和加利福尼亚州圣迭戈。邻近的橙县每天可以获得1亿加仑的再生水，其中一部分用于饮用水或自来水。
Gosh, well that's just California, right? Nibbikrazees. Well, so let us turn our gaze to Australia, to the town of Tuwumba in South Eastern Queensland, home to 95,000 people. The town gets us water from three damned catchments, which reach unprecedented low levels in the early 2000s.
哎呀，那只是加利福尼亚州的情况，对吧？Nibbikrazees。那么，让我们把目光转向澳大利亚，看看位于昆士兰州东南部的图文巴镇，那里有95,000人。该镇从三个水坝蓄水，但这些水坝在21世纪初水位达到前所未有的低位。
After placing water use restrictions and demand initiatives, the city council issued a policy document that mentioned a range of solutions, including the construction of a potable quality recycled water factory. Public opposition rapidly cascaded against the initiative, politicizing it. Six months later, 10,000 people signed a petition against the water factory, coining phrases like Poo Wumba.
在实行用水限制和需求计划之后，市议会发布了一份政策文件，提出了一系列解决方案，包括建造一个产生可饮用水的回收水厂。公众迅速反对这个计划，并将其政治化。六个月后，有10,000人签署了反对水厂的请愿书，同时创造了诸如“Poo Wumba”之类的口号。
A plumber said, at the time, well the problem with the purifying in my biggest concern is that the impact of drinking treated sewage wastewater will have on my family and all other families. And I'm concerned because there is no guarantee. There is absolutely no evidence that the treated sewage wastewater is free of all contaminants.
一位水管工说，目前我的最大担忧是净化处理后的污水对我的家人和其他家庭的饮用有何影响。我担心的是，没有任何保证。没有任何证据表明净化处理后的污水是没有任何污染物的。
In July 2006, Tuwumba held a referendum on the project, and 62% of the residents voted against it, despite a serious ongoing drought. The project was abandoned.
2006年7月，图文巴举行了一次公投，尽管当地长期干旱，62%的居民投票反对该项目。最终该项目被放弃。
My point is as clear as the water itself. The single biggest obstacle to recycled wastewater projects is neither technology or engineering. It is community support.
我的观点就像清澈的水一样明确。对于再生水项目而言，最大的障碍不是技术或工程，而是社区支持。
Now you might be thinking that Singapore is different. People trust the government or that they are compliant to its operations. Asian collective is culture, so on, yada yada yada. But the reality is that Singapore holds elections, and the people's action party has to win those elections to stay in power.
你可能会认为新加坡与其他国家不同，人们信任政府或者顺从政府的运作。亚洲的集体主义文化等等。但事实是新加坡也要举行选举，人民行动党必须要赢得选举才能维持权力。
They can't just steamroll popular sentiment, or they can spill an election. Like many other urbanized areas in the world, Singapore is a water stressed city, relying on imports for a significant portion of its water supplies. I already discussed Singapore's water issues which intimately tie into its political relations with neighbor and frenemy Malaysia in a previous video. So I'll skip all that.
他们不能简单地压制流行情绪，否则会输掉选举。像世界上许多其他城市化地区一样，新加坡是一个水资源紧张的城市，依赖进口水源来占据其大部分的水供应。我之前已经在一段视频中讨论了新加坡的水问题，这与其邻国和亲密的敌人马来西亚的政治关系密切相关，因此我将跳过这一部分。
The main point is that Singapore's geopolitical status pushed it to develop new sources of water, or new water. The systems behind new water date back to the 1960s to a product called Industrial Water. First introduced in 1966, Industrial Water was a non-potable alternative source of water for industries operating on Jurong Island, as well as the Jurong-slash Tuas location. They tried to build a potable water recycling factory even back then, but abandoned it for cost reasons.
新加坡的地缘政治地位迫使其开发新的水源，或称之为新水，这是关键的一点。新水系统可以追溯到20世纪60年代的一种名为“工业用水”的产品。自1966年首次推出以来，“工业用水”成为在裕廊岛和裕廊-大士地区运营的工业企业的非饮用水替代品。那时候他们试图建造一个可饮用的水回收厂，但因成本原因被放弃了。
Over the next few decades, the government's Ministry of Environment continued to monitor water filtration technologies, waiting for them to sufficiently mature. By the time new water moved forward in 1998, new water's core reverse osmosis technologies had been used in the United States for over 20 years. The Singapore government first built a prototype demonstration plant in 2000 in Bedok.
在接下来的几十年里，政府的环境部一直监测水过滤技术的发展，等待着它们的成熟。到了1998年，新水的核心反渗透技术在美国已经使用了20多年。新加坡政府于2000年在勿洛（Bedok）建造了一个原型展示厂。
After extensive tests and training, the government made its first big leap forward with three plants. Ultimately, the vast majority of new waters blended back into the reservoirs. Most of the rest is destined for industrial or cooling use, rather than drinking. It is estimated that new water makes up just 5% of the water coming out of the tap.
通过大量的测试和培训，政府通过三座工厂取得了重大的进展。最终，绝大部分新水与水库混合。其中大部分被用于工业或冷却，而非饮用。据估计，新水仅占出水量的5%。
So you can't exactly buy new water bottles, which you see in the photographs are part of the public relations campaign. Pub's foremost issue when it came to introducing new water to the public was how to avoid a backlash like what happened in California and Australia. In those situations, water administrations had moved forward with the project like as abnormal, but were caught off guard by a negative response.
因此，你实际上不能购买照片中展示的垃圾桶中的新水瓶，这些瓶子是公共关系活动的一部分。在向公众推介新饮用水时，Pub最关心的问题是如何避免像加州和澳大利亚那样的反弹。在那些情况下，饮用水管理部门像异常一样推进了该项目，但却在负面反应方面措手不及。
The Singapore government has made water self-sufficiency a critical policy goal. They frequently talk about it. It is good to have political support at the highest levels, but negative responses can still arise despite particularly dire water shortages, like how it was in Australia.
新加坡政府将自给水源作为重要的政策目标。他们经常谈论这个问题。虽然在水资源特别匮乏的情况下，政治高层的支持是有益的，但仍然可能出现消极的反应，就像在澳大利亚出现的情况一样。
People will care more about the quality of their water than its quantity. Pub decided to be proactive in addressing the public's psychological yuck factor. The key goal in its public relations campaign was to move the public's focus away from where the water was coming from to how they were treating the water.
人们会更加关注水的质量而不是数量。Pub决定积极应对公众的心理厌恶因素。其公共关系活动的关键目标是将公众的注意力从水的来源转移到如何处理水上来。
This wasn't necessarily easy. Boiling down complex technologies like reverse osmosis for the average layperson to understand is hard, but by focusing on process rather than source, they can build confidence in the quality of the output. Frazes in the Straits Times called New Water Systems a marvel of modern engineering, a major technological breakthrough, and state of the art.
这并不是一件容易的事情。将复杂的反渗透等技术归纳简化，让普通人能够理解并不容易，但通过关注过程而非来源，他们可以增强对输出质量的信心。《海峡时报》中的短语称新水系统是现代工程的奇迹、重大技术突破和尖端水平。
An article noted how California water managers were looking to adopt Singapore's technologies for themselves, implying that Singapore has surpassed the Americans in water technology. In focusing on the process, Pub can also validate the water safety with a mountain of data.
一篇文章提到，加利福尼亚的水利管理者正在考虑采用新加坡的水技术，这暗示了新加坡在水技术方面已经超过了美国人。在关注过程的同时，Pub还可以用大量数据验证水的安全性。
During the demo period, Pub took 20,000 test results in seven locations inside the plant, looking for 190 physical, chemical, and microbiological parameters. Over 4,500 test results for New Water found that it had surpassed WHO and United States EPA drinking water standards. This torrent of testing data helped convince policymakers and experts, both foreign and local, to back it.
在演示阶段，Pub在工厂内的七个位置进行了20,000个测试结果，寻找190个物理、化学和微生物学参数。在新水的4,500个测试结果中，发现它已经超过了世界卫生组织和美国环保局的饮用水标准。这些大量的测试数据有助于说服国内外的政策制定者和专家支持它。
The toilet-tapped debacle shows the runaway power of words with negative connotation, so Pub deliberately tried to reframe the context by using phrases that emphasize the water's value as a resource, which of course it was. So rather than saying wastewater or worse yet sewage, Pub communications would say used water.
马桶水龙头的问题显示出带有负面内涵的词汇的不可控权力，因此Pub故意试图通过强调水作为资源的价值来重新定义上下文，当然，水是一种资源。因此，Pub的公共交流中不使用废水，更不要说污水，而是使用“已用水”的说法。
The goal was to dispel the public's predisposed stigmas and come around to the notion that this water had value. Media articles flipped the toilet-tapped notion, again emphasizing the process and end product with phrases like good as new. And Pub engaged both the media and the community early on.
这个目标是消除公众先入为主的偏见，让人们接受这种水具有价值。媒体文章扭转了直接用厕所水的观念，再次强调过程和最终产品，用类似“好像新的”这样的短语来描述。Pub早期就与媒体和社区进行了互动。
One key message was that water reclamation was already being successfully practiced in countries like the United States for 20 years. It was far from new. So before launching New Water, Pub brought members of the media abroad to water reclamation locations in the United States, Orange County and Arizona for instance.
重要信息是，像美国这样的国家已经成功地实践了20年的水资源回收利用。它并不新鲜。因此，在启动New Water之前，Pub向媒体成员介绍了美国的水资源回收利用地点，比如橙县和亚利桑那州。
This led to articles written about water reclamation already being a normal part of society in the US. Documentaries aired on local television, briefings were arranged with grassroots leaders and business groups in order to avoid misunderstandings. Interestingly, Singapore's semiconductor industry was engaged early on.
这导致美国已经将水再生利用视为社会的常态。当地电视台播出了有关此话题的纪录片，组织了与基层领袖和商业团体的会议，以避免误解。有趣的是，新加坡的半导体行业早就参与其中了。
Semiconductor manufacturing requires a great deal of ultra-peer water. They had never drew reclaimed water to source their ultra-peer water before. And Pub were closely with them on it, helping to build a UPW plant specifically for them. Their endorsement helped the sure public opinion of new water's purity.
半导体制造需要大量的超纯水。在此之前，他们从未使用过回收水源作为超纯水的来源。Pub公司密切合作，帮助建立了一个专门为他们量身定制的超纯水工厂。他们的支持有助于确保新水源的纯度，促进公众对其的信心。
And of course, the central aspect of the public messaging was the New Water Visitor Center, a new water museum for anyone interested in learning more about how new water was made. This came with bottled new water for the public to sample themselves. Under your high level leaders appeared at the visitor center's opening, another public endorsement of the water safety.
当然，公共信息发布的中心方面是新水游客中心，这是一个新的水博物馆，为任何对了解新水如何产生感兴趣的人提供服务。公众可以品尝瓶装新水。您的高级领导出现在游客中心的开幕式上，再次公开支持水的安全。
This geyser of engagement did its job. Communications work dribbles on, but New Water has largely been accepted as a part of Singapore society. There is very little that is new about New Water. The tech has been around for decades and the water is being blended into natural resources just like anywhere else.
这种参与的活跃状态已经达到了预期效果。通信工作仍在进行中，但是新水已经在新加坡社会中被广泛接受。关于新水，没有太多新鲜事。这项技术已存在了几十年，水源也像其他地方一样被混合使用。
But it was really interesting to me just how the government approached the problem of building widespread acceptance amongst a public-offed sensitive about the quality of their food and water. As the world's climate continues to change and urbanization continues, water shortages will become a serious problem. With that, tossing reclaimed water into the ocean makes increasingly less sense.
对我来说，政府如何解决在公众对食品和水质量十分敏感的情况下建立广泛接受度的问题很有趣。随着世界气候的不断变化和城市化的持续发展，水资源短缺将成为一个严峻的问题。因此，把回收水排放到海洋中的做法将变得越来越不合理。
But this can lead to more situations like what happened in California and Australia. For coming, this barrier is a legitimate social issue. Singapore's approach can help.
然而，这种情况可能会导致类似加利福尼亚州和澳大利亚发生的更多情况。该障碍是一个合法的社会问题。新加坡的方法可以提供帮助。
简化版：这可能导致更多加利福尼亚和澳大利亚事件。这是一个社会问题。新加坡的方法可以帮助解决。
Alright everyone, that's it for tonight. Thanks for watching. I'll see you guys next time.
大家好，今天晚上的节目到此结束了。感谢收看。下次再见。