Expert input
Helen Hulett, general manager of Talbot & Talbot’ s Water Risk & Strategy Business Unit, offers her input on wastewater treatment.
Q: What are the main challenges of wastewater treatment in South Africa?
TT: The primary challenge to wastewater treatment in South Africa is the lack of recognition of the financial value of wastewater, a consequence of multiple factors, including: 1. A poor understanding of the resources captured within wastewater streams. This not only includes the actual water, which once treated is often of a better quality than the original supply, but can also include others such as energy and input materials. Consequently, the treatment of wastewater can provide significant financial savings to an organisation.
2. A water price that is not reflective of the true cost and importance of water, making it difficult for industry to equate the lost opportunity of discharging wastewater compared with treating and reusing the resource and avoiding further withdraw and non-compliances.
Q: What methods are most popular and what is the company’ s focus?
TT: Talbot & Talbot has 28 years’ experience in the provision of sustainable water and wastewater solutions to our clients across Africa. We have differentiated ourselves in the industrial space with an enhanced specialist knowledge of multiple treatment processes and technologies in a range of sectors, including industrial, food and beverage, mining, agro-processing, petrochemical, and municipal sectors.
Our team has particular experience and success in the specialist field of biological treatment. These systems are extremely effective in treating contaminated water and recovering water and energy through biogas generation.
Q: What is the company’ s differentiator in the field?
TT: Talbot & Talbot has not only been designing and constructing wastewater treatment systems across Africa for the last 28 years, but also operating many of these systems for our clients. Operating systems that have been designed by our own singleeagle. com
Treated wastewater can provide significant financial savings to an organisation.
engineers, as well as those designed by other companies, has enable us to strengthen our service offering through a continuous learning and knowledge exchange between engineers and operators.
Our approach to delivering best value for our clients is to ensure that we develop bespoke solutions that address our clients’ specific challenges while supporting their longer-term strategic drivers. As such, Talbot & Talbot is not bound by specific technologies, but rather will identify and propose the most suitable and robust solution for any particular situation.
Q: Please comment on SA’ s present wastewater landscape
TT: South Africa receives on average 450mm rainfall a year compared to a global average of 870mm, making us the world’ s 30th driest country. Despite this, we have historically managed water very poorly. However, the growing water supply challenges faced by the country over recent years is driving change, and the next few years will see a significant transformation in the way water is viewed, managed and regulated. u
References
1. Ariel ' s Evo Science Blog. http:// arielevoscience. blogspot. co. za.
2. Difference between blackwater and greywater. http:// www. differencebetween. net / miscellaneous / difference-betweenblackwater-and-greywater.
3. Eco-friendly wastewater treatment systems. http:// www. sewtreat. co. za.
4. How wastewater treatment works. https:// www3. epa. gov / npdes / pubs / bastre. pdf.
5. Sewage treatment plants. https:// gozonewater. com / sewage-treatment-plants.
6. UV disinfection for wastewaster. https:// atguv. com / atg-uvapplications / wastewater.
7. Wastewater – what is it? https:// water. unl. edu / article / wastewater / wastewater-what-it.
8. What is wastewater treatment? https:// www. conserve-energy-future. com / process-of-wastewatertreatment. php. netwroking contributor industry debate environment infrastruture municipalities
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