Sustainable Development Goal 9 set by the United Nations is to build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and foster innovation. When it comes to dealing with wastewater treatment for future generations and meeting their demands, society needs to pause and re-evaluate our current methodology for dealing with wastewater. But just like everything in life, if we are talking about changing the world’s current way of doing things, it’s a good idea to narrow things down to get the finer details.
In this blog, we are going to focus on the current wastewater treatment system of Perth in Western Australia. The Water Corporation is the principal supplier of water, wastewater and drainage services throughout the state of Western Australia.
The major wastewater treatment plants owned by the Water Corporation are in Alkimos, Beenyup, Subiaco, Woodman Point and East Rockingham. However, when we look at the location of these plants in comparison to the sheer size of Perth, it is a classic example of a centralised system. People’s awareness is not only driven by knowledge and education but also their environment and surroundings.
When looking at the population demographics, it is clear that majority of Perth’s urban population does not live in the proximity of a wastewater treatment facility. As a result, many residents will continue with their daily water usage practices without thinking of it’s consequences.
Future Challenges Of Wastewater
A decentralised system does not come with any perils. Having a larger number of wastewater treatment plants that are more evenly distributed through Perth will present some significant challenges when implemented.
Firstly, energy consumption is a major obstacle in running a wastewater treatment plant. The smaller a plant, the higher it’s specific power consumption.
From an operational point of view, a wastewater treatment facility is very demanding as staff are on operation 24 hours a day with major responsibilities of overseeing valves and leeks in the system. With a high number of plants in place, there is a greater demand for staff and whilst this can be viewed as a growth in jobs, it is nonetheless an increase in cost.
One of the biggest issues will be lack of land availability as with population growth, residential and commercial developments will be increased accordingly. Therefore, smart urban planning will be vital for the construction of addition wastewater plants.
Sludge production is another significant challenge that is facing the water industry. With sludge being a bi-product of wastewater treatment, sludge plants are very costly to construct and require large areas of land. Now you might think that this shouldn’t be a problem because we are in Australia and we have a lot of land. However, we can’t forget about the future population size which will require municipal wastewater treatment plants to increase their land requirements as well.
Future Wastewater Treatment Demands
By 2050, cities like Sydney and Melbourne will become the size of current London. As a result, the demand for water usage will increase rapidly and our wastewater infrastructure will need to be upgraded to meet these demands. But for a sustainable city, smart thinking has to come from both ways, the government as well as the people. Sure, money could be poured in to build more and technologically advanced wastewater plants, but what are we doing from our part?
Rainwater tanks will need to become a crucial aspect of households in the future, and by doing so residents reduce their dependency on the mains water supply. The maintenance and construction of dams and reservoirs comes at a huge cost and their expansion will be at the expense of future taxpayers such as you and I. The less reliant we are on the mains water supply; the less facilities will need to be expanded.
The impact of storm water runoff is also significantly reduced when increase use from rainwater tanks. As a society we also become more independent as water restrictions don’t end up having a severe impact on households as rainwater tanks provide an alternative supply.
So, overall how does tacking the future challenges for wastewater treatment contribute towards the goal set by the UN? The most effective way to reduce the risk of our current infrastructure lacking capacity to meet future generation’s demands is to reduce our dependencies and become more self-sufficient. Whilst rainwater tanks are not the complete solution, they are an important step towards creating sustainable infrastructure that is resilient and incorporates sound innovation.
References
https://www.oxymem.com/blog/4-major-operational-challenges-facing-wastewater-treatment-plants
The Water Police 