Seawater or recycled water or distilled water?
The answer is ……seawater!!!
Frank the tour guide is going to show you the history of seawater flushing system in this blog post.
Hong Kong mostly uses seawater to flush toilet.
Frank is willing to share more Hong Kong common sense with travelers during his private car tour service.
History of seawater flushing system
During the English colonial era, Hong Kong often faced water shortage and colonial government needed to practice water rationing.
Pokfulam Reservoir was the first reservoir in Hong Kong. It was built in 1863. In 1963, Colonial Government began to buy water from Mainland China.
In 1963, Chinese Government agreed to sell East River water to Hong Kong and sent 100,000 labour to build a long and large water supply project for Hong Kong.
This solved the drinking water problem and the colonial government did not want to use the valuable fresh water from Mainland China and 25 local reservoirs to flush the toilet.
The scenic High Island Reservoir is also the largest in Hong Kong. It locates at the Hong Kong Geopark with the special hexagonal rock column. Frank may fine-tune the Sai Kung tour programme for clients to visit this beautiful place.
As Hong Kong is a deep water ice free harbour, it is easy to get the seawater.
So it built the seawater flushing system.
Today 85% of population uses seawater to flush the toilet.
This saves 280,000,000 cubic meter or 20% of drinking water for Hong Kong.
Building owners can apply to join the seawater flushing project.
Hong Kong’s flushing water plumbing systems, which has designed to be resistant to salty water erosion, should be all ready for the change.
Now only the Fanling new town and Sheung Shui new town, which are comparatively far away from the sea, are still using fresh water for flushing.
Fanling and Sheung Shui New Town (the red icon) in the northern part of New Territories are comparatively far away from the sea. It is expensive to build system to transport seawater there to flush toilet. Want to see the development and history of the New Territories, please browse the link for New Territories private car tour.
The Water Service Department is building the recycled water flushing project for the two areas.
In about 2022, residents in the two areas won’t need to pay for the flushing water anymore.
Distilled water is mainly for drinking.
Frank doesn’t think people will use this expensive water to flush toilet!
Frank wants to share more Hong Kong common sense with travelers during his private car tour service
Frank is eager to share more interesting common sense about Hong Kong during his private car tour with clients.
Let’s share, learn and tour together!
See you later in Hong Kong after Covid-19!
See amazing view of Victoria Harbor at Victoria Peak during our half day private car tour.
Visit beautiful Nan Lian Garden during Hong Kong Kowloon full day private car tour.
Visit the World heritage building, St Paul’s Ruins, during our full day Macau private car tour.
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 For enquiry, please contact Frank. |
