Mega water and waste treatment facility at Tuas begins construction

TUAS Nexus, which is set to be Singapore's first water and waste treatment facility, has begun construction and will be completed in phases from 2025 onwards, the National Environment Agency (NEA) and Singapore's National Water Agency PUB said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

Tuas Nexus, which integrates two mega facilities - namely the Tuas Water Reclamation Plant (Tuas WRP) and the Integrated Waste Management Facility (IWMF) - will help forge a more sustainable Singapore by optimising land use and maximising energy and resource recovery, NEA and PUB said.

Tuas Nexus will harness synergies from used water and solid waste, where the byproduct of one facility becomes a resource for the other facility. These synergies are expected to reduce emission of over 200,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, which is equivalent to taking 42,500 cars off Singapore's roads, the agencies said.

In addition, integrating Tuas WRP and IWMF will save up to 2.6 hectares of land, or about four football fields, they added.

NEA and PUB said Tuas Nexus will be energy self-sufficient, sustaining operations using electricity generated by IWMF. Excess electricity generated will be exported to the national grid, with this excess expected to be able to continually power up to 300,000 four-room HDB flats.

Tuas WRP will have an initial treatment capacity of 800,000 cubic metres per day, the equivalent of 320 Olympic-sized swimming pools of water, the agencies said.

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Unlike conventional water treatment plants, it will be equipped to receive both domestic and industrial used water streams from two separate deep tunnels for treatment. The plant will also be capable of treating industrial used water to a sufficiently high standard for industrial use, a first for Singapore.

In addition, Tuas WRP will house the largest membrane bioreactor facility in the world, which will enable the plant to be more energy efficient while occupying less space compared to existing water treatment plants, avoiding the need for a long sea outfall.

The agencies added that a NEWater factory will be built on the roof of the plant. This factory will significantly boost PUB's NEWater production capability and help ensure a resilient water supply.

Meanwhile, IWMF will be equipped with state-of-the-art solid waste treatment technologies to improve energy and resource recovery from waste.

When built, it will be Singapore's largest and most energy-efficient waste incineration plant. It will also be the nation's first integrated facility treating incinerable waste, source-segregated food waste and dewatered sludge from Tuas WRP, which will help it achieve a higher food waste recycling rate and greater synergy with WRP's operations.

As part of Singapore's Zero Waste Masterplan, IWMF will also be the first facility to sort all household recyclables collected under the National Recycling Programme. The consolidated sorting provides greater economies of scale and higher sorting efficiencies and recovery yields for recyclable waste streams such as metals, paper and plastic, the agencies added.