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Breakaway session: environment
Veldsman said the City of Cape Town regulations and
by-laws are passed by councils to regulate the affairs
and the services that councils provide within their
areas of jurisdiction. Water wastage reduction requires
the local authority to respond rapidly to infrastructure
failures, as well as to conduct preventative maintenance
and public awareness initiatives, such as ongoing
media drives. Minimising stormwater infiltration into the
sewer system puts undue load on the filtration plant’s
capacity, he noted.
e
Principal water inspector at the City of Cape Town, Aidan
Veldsman, covered the topic “The role of regulations for
sustainable plumbing, as well as the role of plumbing
design and installation”. The main theme was the role
that plumbing regulations, innovation, design, and
installation methods play in ensuring the human right of
access to safe water and sanitation infrastructure within
the framework of the UN resolution post-2015.
r
l if
In terms of the status of water and sanitation service
provision within the City of Cape Town, the Support
Programme for Accelerated Infrastructure Development
(SPAID) (2009) ranked Cape Town the very best in terms
of citizens’ access to services. Viljoen also noted that the
City has put in place an Indigent Policy.
Citizens recognise the quality of Cape Town’s
administration, according to 2006 annual reports.
The City’s accountability is enhanced by the use of
state-of-the-art information technology. The City’s call
centre answers over a million calls each year, all in the
customer’s choice of language, Viljoen said.
Wa
te
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Erwin Reisch, chief executive officer of Stuttgart-based
publishing house Gentner Verlag, chaired the sessions on
the environment. Water and Sanitation R&D officer from
the City of Cape Town, Nina Viljoen, spoke on “Access to
water and sanitation services within informal settlements
in the City of Cape Town: towards improvement and
adaptation”. Those who suffer the brunt of water
scarcity are the urban poor, said Viljoen. Cities cannot
be sustainable without ensuring reliable access to safe
drinking water and adequate sanitation. Coping with the
growing needs of water and sanitation services within
cities is one of the most pressing issues of this century.
Sustainable, efficient and equitable management of water
in cities has never been as important as in today’s world.
CEO of Gentner Verlag, Erwin Reisch, chairing the
sessions on the environment.
Managing director of SA Leak Detection Distributors,
Deon Pohorille, spoke on the topic of leak detection and
various sized robots that travel through pipes. Much of
the technology is manufactured in South Africa and can
be used successfully. SA Leak Detection Distributors
has expanded its presence and now conducts leak
detection worldwide. Pohorille presented a case from
Kenya and another from New Orleans, US, where their
processes are monitored from Cape Town. This advanced
technology is highly efficient and it serves the purpose of
leak detection in saving money.
John Telford from Calcamite in Pretoria reported on the
“Conservation of water and adding and recycling water”.
He presented several state-of-the-art ways on how to
conserve water, how to add to the water supply, and how
to recycle. He also explored the topic of greywater and
blackwater recycling. Telford then presented an example
of an off-grid system, which has been installed in
Diepsloot in Johannesburg and is powered by solar.
Continued on page 21 >>
Another issue he touched on was that of installing free
phones in communities so that those reporting leaks can
do so free of charge.
www.plumbingafrica.co.za
November 2016 Volume 22 I Number 9