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( NRW) of 47.4 % were revealed. The report calls for“ innovative technologies that require little or no water or recycled water”. 1 This is where sustainability comes in, and ties with supply and conservation and infrastructure. The question surrounding infrastructure is‘ How do we sustain and maintain infrastructure?’
The current infrastructure cannot keep up with the current water demand, mostly due to urbanisation. Duncan Keil, UPP, gives the perfect example:“ Ten years ago, you could have had a building that served as a business with 10 bathrooms. A few years ago, it was replaced by a hostel that now has hundreds of bathrooms, but the infrastructure was not upgraded when the hostel was built. The pressure needs to be increased to keep up with demand, but the water flow rate cannot be increased past what the infrastructure was created for, so we end up with leaks and burst pipes everywhere.”
Included in the issue of infrastructure is the treatment of wastewater. Currently South Africa gets its water from sources like rivers and dams. The water cycle is this: Water flows through the house, goes to the sewer and waste water treatment works respectively, and is then pushed back to the rivers and dams. And while the systems are designed to treat and filter rainfall water in the rivers and dams, they were not designed to treat sewage and remove contaminants – so consumers are left with unsafe and contaminated water, which affects the public. A recent issue that has arisen in the country is the spillage of sewage directly into water sources during flooding, and with no enforced backflow prevention in South Africa, there is not much that can be done about the issue.
March 2026 Volume 32 I Number 01 www. plumbingafrica. co. za