A College of Cape Town (UCT) water engineering lecturer, Teboho Mofokeng, researches water administration and reuse in South Africa and co-authored the peep. She spoke to The Dialog Africa about Capetonians’ willingness to pay up to 10% more on their water funds to spend seawater to flush their toilets, as lengthy as it doesn’t smell or stain their toilets.
What are the considerations with how toilets are flushed in Cape Town?
The foremost scheme back is that town makes spend of clear, handled drinking water for toilet flushing. Typically, 20%-30% of town’s drinkable water provide to households is outmoded to flush toilets.
The water outmoded for bathing, cooking, laundry, cleaning and flushing toilets goes down the drain. It’s miles handled at wastewater plants to remove injurious germs before being pumped wait on into rivers.
The 2d scheme back is that in some Cape Town communities (besides because the coastal cities of Durban and Gqeberha in South Africa), wastewater is discharged into the sea with miniature treatment to remove injurious germs. Even supposing the authorities permits a certain quantity of discharge, this pollutes the ocean.
The third scheme back is that as demand for housing grows, so does the need for water and sanitation. When an increasing type of wastewater is discharged into the sea, it’s a misplaced opportunity to sustain the water within town water administration system, and spend it again.
What are the that that that it’s most likely you’ll well imagine picks?
South Africa’s water provide network is ageing, has now not been well maintained and is due for substitute or repairs. When original housing traits are linked to the water provide network, there is an opportunity to attain up with that that that it’s most likely you’ll well imagine picks to using drinking water to flush toilets. One option is seawater.
One more can also very well be recycled water. Toilet water can also very well be handled to remove injurious bacteria and reused for flushing. This is able to need a closed water system for flushing toilets. It could most likely well eliminate the recent loss of drinking water flushed down toilets after which discharged into the sea.
How finish people in fact feel about using seawater instead?
Reports savor shown that nearly all households would desire to flush with recycled water than clear, drinkable water. Nonetheless, our peep is the foremost to investigate how people in fact feel about flushing with seawater.
We asked 239 people if they’d be willing to flush with seawater or recycled water or continue to flush with drinking water but pay more to finish so. We also asked how they felt about toilet wastewater being discharged into the sea.
Our look had blended findings. Overall, 90% of people had been willing to transfer away from using drinking water for toilet flushing, but most interesting if the original water supply did now not stain the toilet bowl, used to be determined and had no smell.
We found that 58% of the people we surveyed most in vogue using seawater to recycled water for toilet flushing. Nonetheless, there had been variations in preference according to income, gender and family size. About forty five% of the people we interviewed earned bigger than R12 800 (US$697) per month. They most in vogue to spend drinking water to flush toilets. But females with a higher education qualification had been more doubtless to pay extra for both seawater and recycled water strategies. Homes the assign bigger than three people lived had been more doubtless to pay for recycled water than seawater.
On average, 10%-15% of Capetonians’ municipal funds goes to paying for water. We checked out the preferences of households that pay R350 to R900 per month for water and found they had been willing to pay 5%-10% more to spend clear and determined different water. They had been also willing to spend water with a miniature odour if they bought a minimize mark of up to 60% on their monthly water funds.
Treating wastewater before discharging it into the sea would fee money. We found that folks weren’t willing to foot this invoice. They had been in favour of town treating wastewater most interesting if it reduced their water invoice by up to 7%.
What are the drawbacks of switching to seawater to flush toilets?
On the beginning, it could well possibly need a reproduction network to be put together. This is able to be one network of water pipes for the drinking water provide and one other for the toilet flushing water provide. This is able to indicate that both original and ageing water techniques would be put together or modified by techniques with a reproduction pipe network.
Typically water provide networks spend concrete, steel or plastic pipes. But because seawater corrodes, plastic pipes will doubtless be needed for the seawater flushing pipe network. Plastic manufacturing and the uncooked materials needed savor a predominant impact on the atmosphere. On the moderately a couple of hand, steel or concrete pipes would want to be modified more continuously than plastic pipes.
Secondly, storage amenities fancy reservoirs would want to be built to store the seawater and a original system put together to treat seawater before it’s far piped to homes.
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Thirdly, the chemicals and electrical energy required to clear the water, the provision of water to patrons and in the damage the disposal of the wastewater would add to the expenses. Since South Africa’s energy is tranquil electrical energy made by burning coal, using up more energy in a reproduction water system would increase global warming very much. So, a renewable energy system would want to be put together.
Regardless of these drawbacks, a reproduction system has worked well in Hong Kong. Using less freshwater also advantages the atmosphere more.
What are the solutions?
Local climate swap will outcome in a drier south-western Africa. Unpredictable rainfall and frequent droughts will indicate less freshwater obtainable for fogeys to drink. Therefore, it’s far predominant that coastal cities fancy Cape Town, whose populations are growing, delivery investing now in water offers from unconventional sources.
Folks savor to develop into more aware that now not all family actions need to spend drinking water. Increasing public awareness and education concerning the advantages of using different water can wait on people to accept that they is now not going to be ready to flush their toilets with clear, drinkable water for powerful longer.
This text first regarded on The Dialog.
