In 2002, Singapore's PM Goh Chok Tong drank a bottle of NEWater, a brand of recycled water treated from sewage to demonstrate that it was safe, and of high drinking quality. NEWater, used water passed through microfiltration, reverse osmosis and ultraviolet disinfection, exceeds WHO drinking water standards.
Little of it, though, is drunk. Most goes to wafer fabrication plants, because semiconductors demand water far purer than humans do. The fabs polish it further, until water stops being a beverage and becomes a solvent. Every chip in every data centre has been rinsed thousands of times in water of this kind.
