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retrofitting ailing, aged plants versus new installations; quantity of reuse; rising tariffs; quality of the source; public health issues; public trust and knowledge of water reuse; and regulations and guidelines for reuse.
South Africa’ s water sector is under pressure to perform by magically producing water out of thin air, making the drought go away, and building infrastructure— all without money— while jumping through legislative hoops.
According to Chris Braybrooke, general manager( marketing) at Veolia Water Technologies SA, a water treatment company:“ We all know the current status of the infrastructure in the country. Some provinces look after theirs better than others.” He comments that a major issue is that the country has fallen behind in terms of maintenance, upgrading, and expansion of water infrastructure. Part of this problem is created by urbanisation, putting an extra burden onto an already stressed and overloaded infrastructure.
Veolia
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“ We have raw sewage seeping into our river systems, and what little groundwater we have is totally polluted. The status is bad,” he says bluntly.
Water reuse is widely practiced throughout the world, both in developed and emerging economies, and many countries have established water reuse policies, with associated laws and regulations in place.
Annexure D of the NWRS states:“ Water reuse internationally contributes to reconcile the gap between water availability and water needs in such countries as the United States of America, Spain, Australia, Israel and China.”
According to Carl Haycock, managing director of Talbot & Talbot, there are many opportunities for wastewater treatment in South Africa; however, many remain untapped. Included in this resource is domestic sewage, industrial waste, and various types of run-off. While some of these are treatable, some are not. However, for those that are, good opportunities are available, he stresses.
So why is South Africa so far behind?
Braybrooke offers several suggestions, and top of the list is skills.“ First, we need to look at the operational skills we have in the country, which we lack— dearly,” he stresses. He believes that more people need to be trained in water and wastewater treatment in the municipal sector. This is vital, he points out, seeing as if you do not have this skills base, the infrastructure could be compromised and thus, unreliable.
“ While the money is there, it never seems to reach the contractors who can perform these upgrades on the plants,” he adds with a degree of frustration.
There are many contractors, such as Veolia, who can perform the upgrades of the older plants, but he says they are hamstrung by lack of financial investment.
“ Another challenge is that consultants consult to the municipalities, putting the long-term plans in place, but using old, tried and tested, conventional methods of water treatment. As a technology vendor, with 350 technologies at our disposal to choose from, our approach would be different. We would look at the existing infrastructure and assess how we can best maximise its production,” he states.
“ Innovation is the only way forward. If you continue with the same methods, you will not achieve anything.”
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However, there cannot be a one-sizefits-all approach, he says and points out that different methods are required, according to circumstance,“ There are different approaches: either fix existing infrastructure or invest in new technology.” Veolia has been active in this arena and has a number of case studies to reference, he assures.
“ As an environmental company, we see even wastewater as a resource.”
He explains that wastewater is normally treated to a certain standard and discharged back into our rivers.“ Nothing wrong with that as it keeps our riverine systems healthy,” he comments and references the Durban Recycling Water Works as a case in point.“ It is the largest water supplyrelated successful PPP in our country,” he states.
Wastewater as a resource
There are some progressive councils when it comes to wastewater reuse, Braybrooke says, and describes Cape Town and Stellenbosch, where Veolia is installing membrane bio-reactors.“ Instead of a conventional clarifier, we use ultra-filtration modules. These modules are installed into a concrete basin, and the water is purified by removing most of the impurities. The resultant water is such that it requires a few polishing stages to become pure drinking water, but definitely can be used, at least, for industrial water,” he says.
“ We have installed several of these wastewater plants in Africa; a perfect example being that of Goreangab in Windhoek, which has been operational for 17 years without incident and supplies potable water to 400 000 people. The plant purifies wastewater and semi-purified sewage for direct potable reuse.”
While the extent of water reuse in South Africa is very likely to increase significantly, there is, however, a perceived associated risk that water reuse is unplanned, unregulated and / or results in unintended or undesirable consequences.
Haycock comments on resistance to reusing water. He says that as much as Talbot & Talbot recovers water in the beverages space, for over the past 10 years, the client still refuses to put that treated water back into the product used for drinking. He insists that the water is as good as bottled water and describes how last year, KwaZulu-Natal was in a similar position with debilitating water shortages. Wastewater treatment,
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