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PROJECT
We categorised them as Red , Grey , and Green .
Red catered for particularly harsh , corrosive chemicals that were not allowed to go into the municipal system . These were piped and plumbed underground in stainless steel to a set of holding tanks . The removal of this waste would be the responsibility of a waste management company who would remove the contents and dispose of them in the appropriate and safe manner .
Paragon
The Grey system handled the slightly less corrosive and harmful chemicals than in the red system but still contained acidic and such that could not be sent directly into the municipal system . However , the nature of the chemicals in the grey system could be diluted with harmless sewage and waste . so the grey system had a set of holding tanks and then the green system waste i . e ., normal waste the grey waste would be diluted from the green system allowing the discharge to enter the municipal system safely and legally .
PASA architect Benjamin Chikota .
Plumbing Africa spoke to Trinesh Chanka of IZAZI Consulting Engineers regarding the Wet Services .
“ It was an exciting and challenging project as it was complex due to the nature of the requirements .
The drainage was a combination . There were portions running stainless steel and some running Geberit HDPE . What determined which material was used was the type of chemical being used . Depending on the highly corrosive nature of the chemicals , stainless steel was used . The HDPE for the standard plumbing drainage was a straightforward installation . The manufacturing side was another matter as the drainage had to cater for three different situations .
As one can see the drainage was complex , but this is what made the project exciting as it was not a ‘ run of the mill ’ design and installation . “ Sort of not an everyday job .” Said Trinesh .
The nature of a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant is there must be pure water and pure steam . Whilst this aspect was not part of the plumbing per se the plumber had to provide a valved pressure regulated supply to the calorifier and then the client took over with the sophisticated water conditioning required .
The energy saving adopted was relatively small , but we nevertheless used heat pumps from normal Kwikot geysers . The biggest aspect of sustainability for the wet services was ensuring the municipal system did not have highly corrosive chemicals entering and the less acidic needed diluting as explained earlier .
Paragon
A specific design language was created for the exterior .
Paragon
The major engineering challenge was coordinating the different services .
www . plumbingafrica . co . za @ plumbingonline @ plumbingonline @ PlumbingAfricaOnline November 2021 Volume 27 I Number 9