UPDATE (7 Feb, 10.32am): PUB has issued a statement to MS News emphasising that it “takes a serious view on water quality” and that “tap water in Singapore is safe to drink”.
“Every day, water samples are taken from our distribution network across the island and tested. Our tap water complies with the Environmental Public Health (Water Suitable for Drinking) (No.2) Regulations 2019 and is well within the WHO Guidelines for Drinking-Water Quality. There is no need for any point-of-use (‘POU’) water treatment or filtering devices to further treat the water.”
Addressing the “misleading claims” by a local water purifier company that tap water in Singapore contains harmful micro-organisms, PUB added that it has issued advisories requesting that it “cease such misleading advertisements”.
It will be issuing another advisory to the company in response to this latest advertisement.
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A local air and water purifier company recently faced backlash for claiming that tap water in Singapore contains bacteria in an online advertisement.
After the ad made its rounds on social media, a microbiology student at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) took to Instagram to debunk the claims.
He pointed out that the advertisement was “unethical”, calling out the firm for its “scare tactics.”
Last Thursday (1 Feb), Instagram user Clarence Sim posted a video debunking the claims the firm made regarding the purity of tap water in Singapore.
He started the video by stating that he came across the advertisement the day before on Facebook.
Source: @clarencesimple on Instagram
Clarence then said he was calling the company out for fake news and using scare tactic ads, before showing a part of their advertisement.
In the ad, a voice-over claimed that tap water might not be as clear as it seems. Rather, the company alleged that it contains a “bustling city” of bacteria.
Source: @clarencesimple on Instagram
He then paused the video, before explaining that the microscopic view of the bacteria probably came from a sample extricated from a pond, as opposed to tap water.
Two indicators — one from a diatom shell and the other from leaf debris led him to this conclusion.
Source: @clarencesimple on Instagram
“These are common indicators that the sample is from a pond,” Clarence said.
Another segment of the ad showed a microscopic view of what the company alleged was even more bacteria.
Clarence remarked that this was not true and that the micro-organisms were, in fact, nano-sized algae.
Source: @clarencesimple on Instagram
He also debunked another allegation that the sample contained bacterial algae. Instead, he clarified that it was a unicellular ciliate, which is common in aquatic and soil environments.
Source: @clarencesimple on Instagram
Concluding his video, Clarence stated: “Moral of the story is, don’t use microscopic footage that you don’t know and don’t understand. It will come across a microbiologist like me.”
The final-year PhD student at NTU’s Asian School of the Environment described the ad as “unethical” in his caption.
Speaking to MS News, Clarence said that he decided to react to the ad as it left him in utter disbelief. He explained: “I was just shocked at what I was seeing and decided to screengrab it and comment about it because it’s clearly a scare tactic.”
In a follow-up video of him viewing a sample of tap water under a microscope, he showed that it was clear of any bacteria.
MS News has reached out to the company in question for comments.
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Featured image adapted from @clarencesimple on Instagram.
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