Wastewater Reuse
SA municipal wastewater reuse can learn from international trends A report by Herman Smit* on the 34th Annual WateReuse Symposium in San Diego, California
*Herman Smit is the managing director of Quality Filtration Systems, based in Cape Town, South Africa – herman@ qualityfilters.co.za.
“Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.” - Jacques Cousteau
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outh Africa is in a water crisis and wastewater reuse, desalination and potable water quality are top of the agenda. Where will our future water be sourced? Different water sources become viable solutions for the drought with advanced treatment technologies used for the augmentation of conventional water sources with reuse and desalination. We need to plan how to use our water to its maximum potential, and follow the international trends in water reuse and change the paradigm of water and wastewater management, which aims to recycle every drop of water. Advanced technologies provide a smaller footprint, less operator involvement and less dependency on chemicals for water treatment. QFS has brought first-world technologies to South Africa and localised them to be more affordable for local applications. Our company, QFS, has made it possible – using membrane treatment – to process domestic wastewater directly back into drinking water. The technology used is world-class and is proven to produce drinking water to World Health Organization standards.
34th Annual WateReuse Symposium
“The WateReuse organisation represents a coalition of utilities that recycle water, businesses that support the development of recycled water projects, and consumers of recycled water. The fundamental principle of water reuse is using the right water for the right purpose, everywhere and all the time. That means aiding
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and accelerating the natural process of cleaning the water to make it suitable for its intended purpose, from irrigation to industrial uses to drinking. While the science is clear that recycling water is safe, misinformation has contributed to community resistance for water reuse projects,” stated Paul Jones, president of the WateReuse Association. The WateReuse Symposium creates the ideal platform to engage with municipalities, service providers and technology suppliers to promote the acceptance of recycled municipal wastewater. Acceptance starts with education, which is shared through the multidiscipline presentations and panel discussions delivered over the four-day symposium program. As is the norm in many foreign cities, we need to take domestic wastewater back to drinking water standards. As a water treatment professional with decades of experience, I believe that every town in South Africa could, potentially, be reusing their wastewater. This is affordable and has been done for years in other countries.
Symposium highlights
South Africa needs to follow the international trends in water reuse and change the paradigm of water and wastewater management, which aims to recycle every drop of water via decentralised water treatment plants. This was confirmed by Erin Bonney of Bluefield Research, who presented on
‘Decentralised Reuse: The future of distributed infrastructure’. Commercial buildings can capture and treat water generated from within or around a building for beneficial use on site. The US has many pilot facilities that are researching the quality of different process trains for the reuse of municipal wastewater. A developed economy like the US is spending a tremendous amount of money on research in universities as well as on large-scale pilot plants at municipalities. South Africa can use these results beneficially and design a system based on the findings of the US institutions. Unfortunately, South Africa cannot rival the amount of money spent in the US on research but we can localise solutions for our country. Ryan Popko from the City of Jacksonville, Florida, presented on the municipality’s test results for UF/RO vs Ozone/BAF (see Figure 1). Jacksonville spent US$15 million to $20 million (R222 million to R296 million) on a 3.8 MLD demonstration facility that included separate pilot equipment. A part of the pilot work was an immersive public engagement and educational programme for public perception and awareness requirements. Both the treatment processes met or exceeded the treatment goals for final water quality, although the UF/RO process results were consistently lower for TOC, TDS, disinfection by-products (DBP) and trace organic compounds. The UF/RO