Water, Sewage & Effluent May-June 2018 | Page 39

innovations Given the strategic importance of ‘New Water’ as a critical element in driving inclusive economic growth, consideration could be given by the government to create a water board at national level, responsible only for New Water. transparent trial lasting almost a decade, during which the process was repeatedly explained to laypersons by credible experts, and extensive feedback sessions yielded questions of concern that were systemically dealt with in a credible way. In Windhoek, Namibia, the technology used to recover water from waste was developed by the CSIR in the 1980s. It also yields high-quality water from sewage. This has allowed a series of scientific tests over decades that have cumulatively demonstrated the safety thereof, particularly from a pathological load perspective. In Israel, all wastewater is treated, often using engineered wetlands, with bacterial processes occurring in the root systems of plants that naturally occur in marshes. These remove all harmful nutrients and pathogens. Again, the body of scientific knowledge that has been accumulated is robust and clearly demonstrates the safety. From a purely technical perspective, the recovery of high-quality water from About the author Dr Anthony Turton is a trained scientist specialising in water resource management as a strategic issue, with a robust publication record, contributing regularly across all media platforms. Water Sewage & Effluent May/June 2018 37 launched by the presidency. This was centred on the branding of water recovered from waste as ‘New Water’. The President and other political leaders were seen drinking New Water at public events to legitimise the practice. When Ronnie Kasrils was Minister of Water, he did the same when the Durban South wastewater works became the first in South Africa to create industrial process water from waste. This shows that it can be done by credible leadership and smart branding. In Perth, there is a large water recovery initiative at the Beenyup wastewater treatment plant, which recovers 120mℓ/d (million litres per day). Instead of reusing this directly, it is pumped into the confined Leederville aquifer. This banks the recovered water for 25 years, but it also makes water instantly available from different parts of the same aquifer. This water is blended with conventional surface water and delivered to consumers via the existing reticulation system. Public perception was managed through a Close-up of a Second Generation Vertical Upflow Modular Engineered Wetland System (VUF-MEWS) patented in South Africa and showing the cell density. This gives a lot of processing power in small footprint.