Water is vital to both life and Industry, and is commonly used to carry wastes of different types away from their point of generation, eg sewage, industrial wastes. Wastewaters need to be treated to reduce both pathogens, organics (reduce oxygen in receiving waters), trace metals and organics, and more recently, personal care and pharmaceutical products (environmental damage). Most of the time the processes used are natural biological ones, but sometimes they can be physical-chemical. In both cases we need to put energy in to operate the process, but in some cases, eg anaerobic treatment, we can recover quite a bit of the potential energy from the organics in the wastewater. Hence, is it possible firstly to treat wastewaters with zero or even negative energy input, and secondly, can we produce recycle quality “NEWater” at very low energy inputs? Why are we not recovering more water and recycling it in Singapore rather than depending on imported water? Recent technology allows us to do this so what are the policy barriers hindering this process? The seminar will address some of these issues, but will also be driven by the audience in terms of their interests and knowledge. The purpose of the seminar is to try and start a discussion between technologists and policy oriented researchers