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It’s a system that’s long been accepted by the people of Singapore. The country even makes beer from treated wastewater.
“They had a plan to bring every school child in Singapore through that visitor centre to learn about water recycling, to learn about the need for sustainable water use in Singapore.”
Sydney looks to Singapore
Now efforts are underway in Sydney to educate the public on the prospect of using recycled wastewater.
The Purified Recycled Water Discovery Centre in Sydney’s Quakers Hill is trialling wastewater treatment techniques. Source: SBS News
‘We’re at a tipping point’
Sydney Water project manager James Harrington says: “We’re at a tipping point where we need to start looking at what is the future of our water supply … with our dams depleting quite quickly in drought.”
We need to be prepared and proactive to ensure that we are managing our water supplies so we’re no longer just reliant on rainfall and our one Sydney desalination plant.
James Harrington, Sydney Water project manager
Recycled purified water is being considered as a possible future solution. The process is being tried and tested at the Quakers Hill sewage plant in north-west Sydney and the public is being invited along for the journey.
The Purified Recycled Water Discovery Centre in Western Sydney is introducing members of the public to recycled wastewater. Source: SBS News
Harrington says the Purified Recycled Water Discovery Centre, which opened at the end of 2023, has three main objectives.
“We love having the public come out here and have the conversation with us about what the technology is, and all the work that goes into it to ensure that the water is safe and reliable.”
Sydney Water project manager James Harrington says Sydneysiders need to start considering the future of their water supply. Source: SBS News
Public support ‘really important factor’
“When you look at the differences between the projects that have been successful and those that haven’t been successful, generating public support is a really important factor.”
With water security a challenge globally, around 60 cities are exploring the idea of recycled wastewater. Source: Getty / Nico De Pasquale Photography
‘By no means new to the world’
Harrington says the use of purified recycled water is “new to [Sydney], but it’s by no means new to the world”.
There’s been purified recycled water schemes operating since the 1960s. Currently, 35 cities (around the world) are already using this technology and about 60 more cities are looking into it right now.
James Harrington, Sydney Water project manager
Los Angeles, Barcelona, Cape Town and Perth are among the cities that have already adopted the process.
“And those aquifers now contain part of the water that occurs there naturally, but also the purified recycled water, and then that becomes their drinking water supply going into the future.”
“So it’s largely been decommissioned, but it’s sitting there as part of Brisbane’s or south-east Queensland’s future water supply strategy.”
“When we get to about 40 per cent of the capacity of storage in Brisbane is when that purified recycled water scheme would start generating water gain back into Lake Wivenhoe (source of more than half of the region’s drinking water) as part of Brisbane’s drinking water supply.”
