Work has begun on Singapore's first integrated water and solid waste treatment facility in Tuas, which will help maximise the Republic's energy and resource recovery and optimise land use.
Tuas Nexus consists of two mega facilities managed separately by national water agency PUB and the National Environment Agency (NEA).
When ready from 2025, it will locate PUB's Tuas Water Reclamation Plant next to NEA's Integrated Waste Management Facility.
Land use is optimised as the integrated facility saves up to 2.6ha of land, the size of four football fields, compared with building two stand-alone facilities, NEA and PUB said yesterday.
The project is understood to be the world's first integrated waste and water treatment facility to be conceptualised and planned from the ground up.
It will be energy self-sufficient by harnessing synergies from the two facilities. This is expected to result in carbon savings of more than 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to taking 42,500 cars off Singapore's roads.
"We are building Tuas Nexus because it is the smart thing to do, as the sum would be far greater than its two parts," said PUB chief executive Ng Joo Hee.
He added: "I believe the Tuas Nexus advances the state of the art in sustainable urban waste management and resource recovery, and establishes a new international benchmark for the field."
The Tuas Water Reclamation Plant is a key component of phase two of the Deep Tunnel Sewerage System, which will convey used water from the western part of Singapore to the Tuas plant for treatment.
With an initial treatment capacity of around 800,000 cubic m a day, enough to fill 320 Olympic-size swimming pools, the plant has the ability to receive both domestic and industrial used water streams from two separate deep tunnels for treatment. This will enable it to treat industrial used water for industrial use.
Another record for the water reclamation plant is that it houses the largest membrane bioreactor in the world. This technology enables the plant to avoid the need for a long sea outfall so that it can be more energy-efficient.
Meanwhile, NEA's Integrated Waste Management Facility is set to become Singapore's largest waste incineration plant, as well as its most energy-efficient one yet, upon completion.
Not only will it treat incinerable waste, it can also sort household recyclables and process food waste.
The waste management facility is part of Singapore's Zero Waste Masterplan launched last year, intended to strengthen the nation's climate and resource resilience.
NEA chief executive Tan Meng Dui said: "The integrated facility shines the way for a more circular approach to resource management and brings us one step closer to realising the vision of a zero-waste nation."
