I was one of the privileged few who managed to attend the Asian Water Symposium 2010 held at Dunman High School in June, in conjunction with the Singapore International Water Week.

I was expecting it to be a boring afternoon but boy, was I terribly wrong. Instead, my afternoon turned out to be an enriching one because I was enlightened with new knowledge I never knew with regard to water.

I was shocked to find out that even though 70 per cent of the earth is made up of water, only a mere 1 per cent is clean, drinkable water. It made me wonder how can the people in this world survive should mankind not come up with new and advanced technologies to treat seawater or other water resources.

Ms Lam Man Zhe, an engineer with the water supply department at PUB, also shared with us the current water situation in Third World countries and I was amazed at how easy it is for us in Singapore to get clean water. All we have to do is go to our water tap in our homes and it is most definite that we will get clean water.

Ms Lam also shared several water-saving tips for youths like ourselves. These useful tips include taking a shorter time to shower, and using a cup instead of letting the water tap run when rinsing our mouth after brushing our teeth.

I am definitely going to keep all these tips in mind, and to kickstart my dedication towards conserving water, I am going to start installing thimbles into the water taps in my home – which PUB has been giving away during the week.

Posted by Nur Jannah Mohamed Mustaffa, School of Film & Media Studies, Ngee Ann Polytechnic