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Domestic Water Recycling

Broadcast 6.30pm on 20/10/2004

Maureen King
  Maureen King is proud of Stanhope Gardens, her clean, green suburb, which boasts one of the largest recycled water systems in the country

GEORGE NEGUS: G'day and welcome. Day three in our special National Water Week here at GNT, which is not a bad idea in this driest of continents of ours whose very future, some say, is threatened by water or, more to the point, the lack of it. We're still up here in Far North Queensland, today further south than we have been, in Townsville. And we're going to be looking at the way water is used and misused around this country.

(Kids scream and play at Water Park)

GEORGE NEGUS: How about that? Brilliant. What a great idea – a kid's dream come true. Appropriately enough, we're here at Townsville's Strand Water Park, and you'll be pleased to hear that all that water the kids are having so much fun with is recycled. It's a pretty impressive local attempt to raise public awareness about water, especially with the kids.

Colin Judge, Sydney Water
  Colin Judge, from Sydney Water, says suburbs like Stanhope Gardens would not have existed at all without recycled water
scene from the Rouse Hill Recycled Water Plant
  The Rouse Hill Recycled Water Plant is where the waste water is processed
  The recycled water is also about a third of the price of the drinking water
Resident with hose
  Residents are able to water their gardens and have lawns, despite Sydney's water restrictions

Later we'll be chatting with a local marine expert about the future of one of the world's seven natural wonders – the Great Barrier Reef. The future of the reef in a little while. But I have to say, I'm really rapt in this water park. I think it's a fantastic idea. If you ask me, there should be one of these in every city and town in the country. Anyway, speaking of recycled water, first let's check out a housing development that boasts one of the largest recycled water systems anywhere in the country.

MAUREEN KING: This is Stanhope Gardens and this is my home. This is Parklea Markets – a very popular weekend market. We have lots of green open space and lush sporting fields.

SIMON WATT: Maureen King is the acting president of the Stanhope Garden Residents Committee. She's very proud of her clean, green suburb.

MAUREEN KING: It's a nice open area. You've got a mixture of new and old in the area, lots of trees and gardens.

SIMON WATT: Even though there's mandatory level two water restrictions enforced throughout NSW, this is a sight that's common around Stanhope Gardens in Sydney's north-west. Now, before you reach for the phone and complain to your local water authority, people here don't need to worry about water restrictions because they're using recycled water.

COLIN JUDGE, SYDNEY WATER: Recycled water is provided to about 15,000 homes in this area. Suburbs like Stanhope Gardens would not have existed at all if that recycled water wasn't provided.

SIMON WATT: Colin Judge works for Sydney Water, the body controlling the recycled water project.

COLIN JUDGE: Well, this whole development area in the north-west sector of Sydney, for development to take place, the planning authorities required that there be no environmental impact on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River system. To do that, recycled water was the answer because that reduced the volume and the nutrient loads going into the river.

SIMON WATT: This is the Rouse Hill Recycled Water Plant where they take waste water and make it new again.

YVONNE SINANOVIC, MANAGER – RECYCLED WATER PLANT: We get about 10 million litres of sewage a day. The aim of the sewage treatment plant, OK, is to break down the nutrients, break down solid material, organics, converting it all into recycled water. This is the inlet works.

SIMON WATT: What happens here?

YVONNE SINANOVIC: This is where we've got two screening processes where it takes away the solid material such as rags, screenings, cotton buds, cigarette butts. That gets pressed and then that goes into a bin which we send off to landfill. In here, large, solid material is settling to the bottom which leaves the primary effluent going over these weirs. Now, you can see, it's pretty good quality.

SIMON WATT: Yeah, it looks surprisingly clear, doesn't it?

YVONNE SINANOVIC: It does. Now, it still has a high nutrient level. And that goes for further processing. In this tank is where, biologically, we remove nitrogen and phosphorous as well as trying to reduce the solids even more.

SIMON WATT: What do you mean? How do you do it biologically?

YVONNE SINANOVIC: There's biomass in there that take up phosphorous, chew it up, and then break it down further.

SIMON WATT: This is a really important part of the process here. This is where all the bugs and parasites are taken out. And they're taken out with these. Well, lots of these, in fact. And they're not mops, they're filters.

YVONNE SINANOVIC: This is basically the tertiary treatment process where we've taken out the nutrients and the solids, and now this is then the feed for the Recycled Water Plant. It goes for further processing through microfiltration, then it goes through superchlorination, out through to a storage tank and then it's pumped out through to the distribution system.

COLIN JUDGE: From the local reservoirs that have been constructed – that's a recycled-water reservoir and a potable... a drinking-water reservoir – there are two sets of pipes go through the streets and go past every property in the development. So we've got two pipes and two water meters coming on the property. One for drinking water in a normal water meter and normal piping and the other one a lilac water meter that indicates that this is recycled water. Very obvious to the customer who's using it.

SIMON WATT: Is there any difference in price between this water here and that water there?

COLIN JUDGE: Well, the recycled water's about a third of the price of the drinking water. 28.6 cents a kilolitre for recycled water, just on a dollar for drinking water. You wouldn't know any difference when you're using it for flushing toilets. The only time you would notice a difference is if you did drink it. And it's got a salty taste to it because the process itself in the recycle plant does give you that end-result saltiness.

We do give advice to gardeners, though, to take a bit of care because there are some plants and lawns that are affected by the saline water. So there are some plants that you would perhaps be using another tap on the property where you have normal drinking water if you wanted to use those sorts of plants. We've had two or three events of cross-connection to the system. A couple of those were only on individual properties but a couple of weeks ago we had a concern when a customer rang us having a salty taste in their supply.

We went through a massive flushing program of the mains that evening and had supply back to normal by about midnight. I think people who initially buy into this area have an environmental consciousness about them because the attraction for many of them is recycled water and the fact that you are going to save the use of drinking water.

MAUREEN KING: As far as I'm concerned, I can water the garden and have a lawn. With the water restrictions in Sydney at the moment, I wouldn't be able to have all this green around me. I can water my garden and do all those sorts of things and not worry about "I'm using Sydney's drinking water."

GEORGE NEGUS: Recycling water in the home. Surely that's got to be the first big step if ever we're going to get on top of this problem of sustainable water use. And thanks to Simon Watt there.


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