In the sprawling pavilion section of the United Nations climate talks, where countries, nonprofits and tech companies use big, flashy signs to get the attention of the thousands of people walking through, small aqua and purple beverage cans sit conspicuously on a counter at the Singapore display.
Those who approach learn that the cans are beer - a brand call NEWBrew - and free for anybody who asks. But there is something not everybody who cracks one open finds out right away, if at all the beer is made with treated wastewater.
"I didn't know. I was really surprised," said Ignace Urchil Lokouako Mbouamboua, an international relations student from Congo, who recently sipped one while taking a break from the conference.
"I can even suggest that they make more and more of this kind of beer," added Mbouamboua with a smile, sharing it was his third day in a row he stopped for a can.
NEWBrew is made in Singapore with NEWater, the name of treated wastewater that's part of a national campaign to conserve every drop in one of the world's most water-starved places.
