The City of Cape Town is commissioning treated effluent irrigation connections at a number of city parks and other recreation facilities in a move it says will likely save between 2.5-million and 3.5-million litres of drinking water a day.

Treated effluent is wastewater that has been purified at wastewater treatment works, where contaminants are removed before it is reused for irrigation or industrial purposes.

With a pipeline network extending almost 283 km, treated effluent is being supplied from nine city wastewater treatment plants, namely Athlone, Bellville, Cape Flats, Kraaifontein, Macassar, Potsdam, Scottsdene, Zandvliet and Melkbosstrand.

As part of the ongoing roll-out, the Recreation and Parks Department, in collaboration with the Water and Sanitation Directorate, entered into a formal agreement to switch to treated effluent for the irrigation of city-owned sportsfields and other recreation facilities.

There are now 120 facilities connected to the treated effluent supply system, with more earmarked to be added to offset the use of drinking water.

Late last year, treated effluent supply was already activated to Chukker Road Sportsfield (Phase A), Wens Road Park, City Park (private sportsfield), William Herbert Sportsfield, Brochurst Park and Bellville Compost Plant.

Construction works are under way to supply treated effluent for irrigation to Athlone Cricket Field (fields 1 and 2), Wynberg Sports Ground, Rylands Sports Complex and Chukker Road Sportsfield by the end of this financial year.

“As the city drives initiatives for infrastructural development, which support our vision of becoming a water-resilient city, we encourage more private business and industries to take up this win-win opportunity,” notes Water and Sanitation MMC Zahid Badroodien.

“Treated effluent costs much less and you can help to conserve valuable drinking water when making the switch, for the purposes of irrigation or industrial processes.”

Treated effluent is available at R7.62 a kilolitre (kℓ) for golf clubs, schools, and recreation and parks facilities, and R8.71/kℓ for commercial and industrial users.

This is significantly less than the potable water tariff, which currently stands at R35.07/kℓ for commercial, industrial, and educational institutions.

“The city will invest R65-million towards improving treated effluent infrastructure during the 2024/25 financial year,” adds Badroodien.

“That includes the upgrade of Bellville pump station and the pipeline to supply to Kuils River, the new Scottsdene pump station and Phase 1 of its pipeline, and the new Zandvliet pump station.

“These projects are planned for completion during the next financial year.”

Cape Town in 2018 came unnervingly close to Day Zero in terms of drinking water availability owing to drought conditions, climate change and a rapidly growing population.

The latter two of those conditions remain present.