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Malay Mail
7 days ago
- Health
- Malay Mail
Is it OK to boil water more than once, or should you empty the kettle every time?
SYDNEY, July 17 — The kettle is a household staple practically everywhere — how else would we make our hot drinks? But is it okay to re-boil water that's already in the kettle from last time? While bringing water to a boil disinfects it, you may have heard that boiling water more than once will somehow make the water harmful and therefore you should empty the kettle each time. Such claims are often accompanied by the argument that re-boiled water leads to the accumulation of allegedly hazardous substances including metals such as arsenic, or salts such as nitrates and fluoride. This isn't true. To understand why, let's look at what is in our tap water and what really happens when we boil it. What's in our tap water? Let's take the example of tap water supplied by Sydney Water, Australia's largest water utility which supplies water to Sydney, the Blue Mountains and the Illawarra region. From the publicly available data for the January to March 2025 quarter for the Illawarra region, these were the average water quality results: pH was slightly alkaline total dissolved solids were low enough to avoid causing scaling in pipes or appliances fluoride content was appropriate to improve dental health, and it was 'soft' water with a total hardness value below 40mg of calcium carbonate per litre. The water contained trace amounts of metals such as iron and lead, low enough magnesium levels that it can't be tasted, and sodium levels substantially lower than those in popular soft drinks. These and all other monitored quality parameters were well within the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines during that period. If you were to make tea with this water, re-boiling would not cause a health problem. Here's why. It's difficult to concentrate such low levels of chemicals To concentrate substances in the water, you'd need to evaporate some of the liquid while the chemicals stay behind. Water evaporates at any temperature, but the vast majority of evaporation happens at the boiling point — when water turns into steam. During boiling, some volatile organic compounds might escape into the air, but the amount of the inorganic compounds (such as metals and salts) remains unchanged. While the concentration of inorganic compounds might increase as drinking water evaporates when boiled, evidence shows it doesn't happen to such an extent that it would be hazardous. Let's say you boil one litre of tap water in a kettle in the morning, and your tap water has a fluoride content of 1mg per litre, which is within the limits of Australian guidelines. You make a cup of tea taking 200ml of the boiled water. You then make another cup of tea in the afternoon by re-boiling the remaining water. On both occasions, if heating was stopped soon after boiling started, the loss of water by evaporation would be small, and the fluoride content in each cup of tea would be similar. But let's assume that when making the second cup, you let the water keep boiling until 100ml of what's in the kettle evaporates. Even then, the amount of fluoride you would consume with the second cup (0.23mg) would not be significantly higher than the fluoride you consumed with the first cup of tea (0.20mg). The same applies to any other minerals or organics the supplied water may have contained. Let's take lead: the water supplied in the Illawarra region as mentioned above, had a lead concentration of less than 0.0001mg per litre. To reach an unsafe lead concentration (0.01mg per litre, according to Australian guidelines) in a cup of water, you'd need to boil down roughly 20 litres of tap water to just that cup of 200ml. Practically that is unlikely to happen — most electric kettles are designed to boil briefly before automatically shutting off. As long as the water you're using is within the guidelines for drinking water, you can't really concentrate it to harmful levels within your kettle. But what about taste? Whether re-boiled water actually affects the taste of your drinks will depend entirely on the specifics of your local water supply and your personal preferences. The slight change in mineral concentration, or the loss of dissolved oxygen from water during boiling may affect the taste for some people — although there are a lot of other factors that contribute to the taste of your tap water. The bottom line is that as long as the water in your kettle was originally compliant with guidelines for safe drinking water, it will remain safe and potable even after repeated boiling. — Reuters
SBS Australia
14-07-2025
- General
- SBS Australia
Here's why Australians are being asked to water plants with milk
Utilities urge people not to tip fats, oils or grease down drains - Sydney Water is making clear that includes milk. The fat in milk is a contributing factor to problematic fatbergs that block drains and cost millions to deal with. There is an average of about 1300 'chokes' in Sydney's sewage system each month due to contaminants. The short shelf life of milk means many Australians have came across milk past its prime and chosen to dispose of it rather than drink it. But those who have tipped it down the kitchen sink drain are doing it wrong, according to Sydney Water. Australian residents — not just those in Sydney — are being urged not to pour milk down the drain because of the potential damage it can cause. Milk is part of the 'FOG' problem in drains The key concern are the fats contained in milk. Sydney Water's principal manager environment, Ben Armstrong spoke to SBS News about a new campaign that will focus on fats, oils and grease contaminants that should not go into drains. Source: Supplied "It's all foods or liquids that have fats in that we are keen for people not to put down the drain," Sydney Water's principal manager environment, Ben Armstrong, told SBS News. "It adds to the buildup of fat and what we call 'fatbergs' in the system, and can create a lot of problems." Fatbergs are large accumulations of items that are not designed to be flushed down toilets. Combined with fats, oils and greases — or 'FOGS' — they clump together and can cause blockages in drains. They can weigh in the tonnes and are difficult to pull apart and dislodge. Armstrong said recent Sydney Water survey results showed that 69 per cent of Sydneysiders thought it was okay to tip old milk down the drain. "That's quite a high percentage, so we're quite keen to raise awareness that the only things we want you to put down the sink is really water, soap and detergent," he said. "It's been something that I guess people don't really realise and they've been doing it for quite a while." While disposing of a small amount of milk down the drain might seem harmless, fats in milk contribute to blockages that have cost millions of dollars to deal with in Sydney in the past nine months alone. Source: Getty / Caner CIFTCI Sydney Water suggests people add water to old milk and pour it on plants. Armstrong said only the three 'P's — pee, poo and paper — should be flushed down toilets, and only water, soap or detergent should go down sinks. The fatberg that stopped a concert Armstrong said Sydney Water spent $12 million in the nine months to July dealing with 11,805 "chokes" in the wastewater system. He said the total cost of such blockages would likely be about double that if related costs in terms of the clean-up and repairs of cracked and broken wastewater infrastructure were also taken into account. In February, a blockage caused by a fatberg forced the last-minute cancellation of the concert of Canadian rock singer Bryan Adams, who had been set to play at Perth Arena. Following the cancellation, the Water Corporation said the concert had not gone ahead "due to the risk of sewage backing up within the venue toilets, posing a potential public health risk". The cumulative effect Pouring a bit of milk down a kitchen drain might seem harmless, but the interconnected nature of drainage systems means it's not. Professor Stuart Khan, head of the School of Civil Engineering at the University of Sydney, said the two main water drainage systems in cities are storm water and sewage drains, with sewage drains dealing with the wastewater from all parts of the household, including kitchens and bathrooms. "The sewage takes all of the indoors water, so everything that we flush down toilets that comes from the kitchen sink, the bathtub, the showers, they all connect within the household, within the property and then that water then is directed into a municipal sewer, which is the larger pipes that run ... often under the backyards or under the street out the front, and take the water to a sewage treatment plant," Khan told SBS News. "It's a cumulative effect, so it's not so much what a single person does, it's the impact of everybody in a city. Sydney has 5.5 million people — if we're all discharging fats, including the fats in milk down drains, then yes, that can lead to part of the problem further downstream where they all come together and you have the sewage of hundreds of thousands of people accumulating." Many Australians would have poured spoiled milk down the sink without a second thought in the past, but the fats in milk are combining with other pollutants in our waste water to form blockages. Source: Getty / Robin Gentry Khan said the issue was not specific to Australia . "All of the big cities around the world are dealing with this problem," he said. "It does have a huge impact on maintenance needs, therefore it has a big impact on the water utility costs, and they all flow back to customer bills. "So it's in all of our interests to try to minimise the need for maintenance, to try to minimise sewage spills and overflows which blockages can cause." Greater public awareness While utilities may not have specifically articulated milk in the past as one of the things not to be put down drains, Khan said it was a good way to get the message across to the general public. "One of the advantages of talking specifically about milk, is that it has the reaction that I think it's caused here, which is to go, 'oh, right, so that contains fats, what else might contain fats?', so thinking about some of the less obvious sources of fat going down the drain," he said. "I think it is a way of sort of broadening our perspectives on what is okay and what's not okay to flush down the toilet or down the kitchen sink." Sydney Water will launch its campaign focused on increasing awareness of the potential issues that fats, oils and greases can cause sewer systems on the weekend.
The Age
13-07-2025
- General
- The Age
Is milk bad now? No, but it is contributing to a $12 million plumbing problem
They say don't cry over spilt milk, but whoever 'they' is has probably not been whacked with a hefty fee to clean it up. Australia's wastewater management bodies have – Sydney Water says it spent $11.7 million to manage 11,805 clogs in its network, many caused or worsened by a build-up of fats, between July 2024 and April 2025 – and they'd very much like for it to stop. But that would require households axing the popular kitchen habit of pouring milk down the drain, a fact taking the whole world by surprise. Let's start from the beginning. What is a 'fatberg'? 'Fatberg' sewer blockages, like the one that caused the 'bitterly disappointing' cancellation of Canadian singer Bryan Adams' Perth concert in February, are quite common. Loading Of the 3200 blockages South East Queensland's Urban Utilities spent $2.2 million clearing last year, more than 400 were caused by fats, one of the main ingredients in fatbergs. Victoria's Yarra Valley Water says in the past five years, it's spent around $5 million clearing preventable blockages, with most of the roughly 1200 annual blockages caused by fats, oils, and wet wipes. Western Australia's Water Corporation, meanwhile, spends more than $1 million annually removing fatbergs, with 850 of the 1329 preventable wastewater blockages in FY2023-24 attributed to fats, oils and grease. Every water management retailer in Australia provides differing services across various locations, with population density, climate and topography impacting the frequency – and size – of fatbergs. The consequences, however, are the same from seaboard to seaboard.
Sydney Morning Herald
13-07-2025
- General
- Sydney Morning Herald
Is milk bad now? No, but it is contributing to a $12 million plumbing problem
They say don't cry over spilt milk, but whoever 'they' is has probably not been whacked with a hefty fee to clean it up. Australia's wastewater management bodies have – Sydney Water says it spent $11.7 million to manage 11,805 clogs in its network, many caused or worsened by a build-up of fats, between July 2024 and April 2025 – and they'd very much like for it to stop. But that would require households axing the popular kitchen habit of pouring milk down the drain, a fact taking the whole world by surprise. Let's start from the beginning. What is a 'fatberg'? 'Fatberg' sewer blockages, like the one that caused the 'bitterly disappointing' cancellation of Canadian singer Bryan Adams' Perth concert in February, are quite common. Loading Of the 3200 blockages South East Queensland's Urban Utilities spent $2.2 million clearing last year, more than 400 were caused by fats, one of the main ingredients in fatbergs. Victoria's Yarra Valley Water says in the past five years, it's spent around $5 million clearing preventable blockages, with most of the roughly 1200 annual blockages caused by fats, oils, and wet wipes. Western Australia's Water Corporation, meanwhile, spends more than $1 million annually removing fatbergs, with 850 of the 1329 preventable wastewater blockages in FY2023-24 attributed to fats, oils and grease. Every water management retailer in Australia provides differing services across various locations, with population density, climate and topography impacting the frequency – and size – of fatbergs. The consequences, however, are the same from seaboard to seaboard.
The Age
10-07-2025
- Business
- The Age
Our water bills are too cheap – and we'll soon pay dearly for that
There are no more important social and economic policy challenges in Australia today than housing and productivity. Nationally, there is a housing target of 1.2 million homes by 2030 to fix an affordability crisis for existing and future generations of Australians. Meanwhile, the federal government has convened a summit to turn around a decades-long decline in productivity. Playing out across Australia, and particularly Sydney, is an issue that profoundly affects both of these challenges, and it has been building for the past decade. Like new roads and energy infrastructure, new water and wastewater pipes and infrastructure must be built to accommodate new housing. NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey has described the years ahead as the decade of pipes and poles. Data centres, the new building block of productivity, need secure water sources just as much as they need energy and land. Data centres of the future will be among the biggest water users in any capital city in Australia, and dozens are expected in major cities over the next decade. In Sydney, against a backdrop of criticism for not keeping pace, Sydney Water has proposed to spend $15 billion over five years to maintain ageing infrastructure, meet the housing needs of a rapidly growing city and ensure a resilient and secure supply of water. However, in its draft decision, the NSW pricing regulator, IPART, has proposed a cut of $5.9 billion, or 35 per cent, over the next five years – one of the largest cuts to proposed water investment we've seen for a generation. IPART's draft determination has cut investment for housing-related infrastructure by $3.2 billion over those five years compared with what Sydney Water proposed. Loading Like many others, the Water Services Association of Australia, which I lead, has raised concerns that delaying investment risks a lack of new water and wastewater connections placing a handbrake on housing and productivity in Sydney. While Sydney is the focus of friction now, we've been highlighting for some time the funding constraints that exist across the industry. The National Performance Report for the urban water sector was released this year by the Bureau of Meteorology. It went unreported in the media. It shows two contrasting trends over the past decade: first, bills for water and wastewater services have remained flat; second, investment has been significantly increasing – water and wastewater capital expenditure during that period roughly doubled. The flat bill trend is not sustainable. A step change in capital expenditure is required, with investment for housing being the biggest driver.
