Wastewater Treatment Plants | savingwater.co.za

Urine provides excellent sanitation solution

Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 27 October 2010

The separate collection of urine provides innovative opportunities for the improvement of sanitation and the recycling of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Urine separation is an excellent sanitation solution, particularly in places where classic sewer-based sanitation is not sustainable. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is providing a grant of 3.0 million US dollars to support a joint project by the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag) and the eThekwini Water and Sanitation utility (EWS) in South Africa to continue developing practical, community-scale nutrient recovery systems.

Urine-diverting dry toilet

The project, covering a period of four years, focuses on the further development of technical solutions for urine processing for nutrient recovery. In addition, project participants, together with experts from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, will study the logistics of collection and transport of urine from toilets to processing facilities. The Swiss aquatic research scientists and their partners in South Africa will also examine ways in which sanitation can be paid for by the production and sale of urine-based fertiliser, thus enabling a cheap, efficient and widely-accepted sanitation system to be set up.

Alternatives are urgently needed

There is a growing awareness that in many parts of the world an alternative is needed for the conventional sewer-based sanitation and central wastewater treatment system – if only for the reason that not enough water is available for drinking let alone to be used for flushing. There is a pressing need to reduce the number of people with no access to basic sanitary facilities and safe drinking water, as required by the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As well as endangering people’s health, inadequate disposal of faecal material poses a risk to the drinking water supply and contaminates the natural environment. Last but not least, the global demand for fertiliser is so great that interest in local sources of nutrients is growing. Continue reading Urine provides excellent sanitation solution

Zorro lived a slimy life

Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 08 July 2010

A juvenile hippo, nicknamed Zorro, was caught at Cape Town’s largest waste-water treatment plant near Strandfontein on Monday and shipped off to a private reserve in Worcester.

Zorro the hippo

Zorro had made the [...]

Minister responds to charges for Hartbeespoort pollution

Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 29 June 2010

WATER DEPARTMENT MOVES TO CURB POLLUTION OF WATER SOURCES

The Department of Water Affairs has noted with concern recent media reports of an environmental lobby group -the Environment and Conservation Association, which is said [...]

Water security flagged as South Africa’s next crisis

Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 04 June 2010

Trade union the United Association of South Africa (UASA) says that, while government seems to realise the enormity and the seriousness of the country’s water security crisis, the biggest stumbling block remains its apparent resistance [...]

SA’s water: A looming apocalypse?

Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) - partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 07 May 2010

South Africa faces a far more disruptive threat than Eskom power failures, one that is potentially calamitous and may even be seen by religiously-minded citizens as the coming of the biblically predicted apocalypse.

It will be characterised by the failure of wastewater purification systems, the pollution of rivers and dams and even the poisoning of waters in reservoirs or dams serving as reservoirs if the purification process is inadequate at that level.

The first signs of the disaster are already visible in remote rural areas where the municipalities – which are responsible for wastewater purification – are too poor to attract appropriately qualified personnel to operate purification systems and ensure that they are properly maintained.

Though water and environment affairs minister Buyelwa Sonjica denies that there is a water crisis at present, she implicitly admits that one is inevitable unless strenuous action is taken to prevent it when she warns that South Africa will have to spend R23-billion to prevent the collapse of the wastewater treatment system.

An excellent synopsis of the main dimensions of the impending crisis if appropriate and urgent measures are not taken is contained in a publication by the Centre for Development and Enterprise and Business Leadership SA.

The publication summarised the contents of a round table discussion by representatives of government, business and academia on the genesis of the problem and the threatened crisis.

The scene-setting introduction makes two broad points: Continue reading SA’s water: A looming apocalypse?

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Urine provides excellent sanitation solution

Zorro lived a slimy life

Minister responds to charges for Hartbeespoort pollution

Water security flagged as South Africa’s next crisis

SA’s water: A looming apocalypse?

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