Commonwealth Secondary School

First wastewater treatment centre in a school
Fri, Jul 11, 2008 The Straits Times

EVEN schools are jumping on the wastewater treatment bandwagon.

Two weeks after the end of an international conference on water hosted by Singapore, a small-scale wastewater treatment centre has made its way into Commonwealth Secondary School here.

Technologies on how to recycle wastewater figured heavily at that conference and Commonwealth Secondary is the first school here to have such a centre.

It is part of the school's new campus at West Coast and bolsters the school's new role as the first centre of excellence for environmental education.

Schools which show outstanding achievements in a specific area, such as language and information technology, are handpicked by the Education Ministry to serve as test beds for new projects.

Commonwealth Secondary's wastewater treatment centre is actually a series of ponds containing plants like lotus, cattails and cyprus, micro-organisms and activated carbon which can treat water from sinks into clean water.

The water can then be used to water plants and wash various parts of the school.
The school's new campus at West Coast Road was opened by environment and water resources minister Yaacob Ibrahim on Friday evening.

In his speech, Dr Yaacob said such water recycling was a concept of relevance to Singapore where water is scarce.

'Even though Singapore has now made its water supply resilient... it is important that we continue to conserve water and value water as a source of life,' he said.

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