“Do you guys know what a floppy disk is?” One of my senior colleagues asked her younger co-workers over lunch at work recently. Their quizzical looks answered her question.

 

Understandable. People of my generation do not depend on floppy disks. It is tough for us to appreciate why it was impossible to use the landline and the Internet simultaneously. Memories of our family computer – a bulky deskbound computer that would heat up minutes after we’d switched it on – are tucked in the fringes of our minds. 

 

Perhaps twenty years from now we will be asking similar questions – on our progress in mitigating climate change.

 

Why Did You Guys Throw Waste Away Without a Second Thought?

 

In 2039, waste – neither data nor oil – is the new gold. Similar to major oil companies expanding their portfolios by acquiring green energy firms, mining conglomerates are rushing to invest in urban mining. Sewage is sought after as material for syngas, a mixture of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide. Syngas can serve as both an immediate source of fuel and an intermediary to other sources of fuel. Moreover, syngas has been proven to be a cleaner source of fuel. And just as how Impossible Burgers started to gain traction twenty years ago, people are embracing the concept of their clothes being made out of recycled plastic. 

 

All of this is thanks to technological advancements and increased economies of scale. 

 

We may have had these ideas twenty years ago in 2019, but the cost of such technology limited us. This is nothing new. Singapore had the idea of recycling water on a mass scale in the seventies. It only materialized  thirty years later in 2003, when the technology required was reliable and affordable enough to scale NEWater production.  

 

Given the technological and economic constraints back then, achieving water recycling in thirty years can be considered impressive. Now that we have a deeper recognition of the value of waste, we are taking aggressive steps to make our 2039 economy completely circular.

 

An exhibit simulating microfiltration in water treatment at the NEWater Visitor’s Centre.

 

Why Weren't Integrated Waste Management Facilities (IWMFs) Commonplace?

 

Syngas is a highlight product of waste treatment (the exact term is gasification) in IWMFs, one-stop hubs that reincarnate the different types of waste that we produce. Compared to traditional waste management plants, IWMFs are recognized to be more energy efficient and land optimising. Given that syngas is an energy source, integrated waste management facilities double as waste-to-energy facilities. 

 

These are everywhere in 2039. In other words, whatever is flushed down the toilet, whatever leftover food that was thrown away a few hours ago ends up as electricity powering washing machines and refrigerators. In a few hours, not a few days. 

 

IWMFs started out as centralized facilities, aimed at treating waste produced at the city level. Waste citywide was transported across the city to centralized IWMFs in Deep Tunnel Sewage Systems (DTSS), an equivalent of highways for waste. The idea of decentralized IWMFs came later, when stakeholders realized that it costs less to transport waste across a shorter distance and treat waste on a localized scale. Today, decentralized IWMFs are found in every district, and are responsible for generating energy for each district. They can also be found at commercial sites that are known to generate huge amounts of waste, such as shopping centers. While centralized IWMFs are more applicable for industrial purposes today, decentralized IWMFs are more prominent and relevant to our daily lives.

 

Hence, IWMFs then and now are analogous to first generation IBM computers vs. Macbooks. Both the former and the latter started out as centralized devices, evolving to decentralized, cheaper, ubiquitous and space-optimizing devices along the way.