The Green Drop Report of 2022 highlighted a blink picture of South Africa’s wastewater treatment state. With more than 60% wastewater treatment works (WWTW) in a poor to critical sate, and with over 90% WWTW discharging untreated to partially treated water into the water system. The recent cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal which lead to 31 deaths, together with 1 death in both Free State and Mpumalanga clearly confirm the crisis presented by the Green Drop Report 2022. At this pace we are getting further from meeting the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SGD 6) of Clean Water and Sanitating for our population. With contradicting interests (political, eco-nomic, social, technological, environmental, and legal) This paper outlines the easy-to-understand way to deal with infrastructure decay without sophisticated engineering approaches. The asset portfolio condition assessment is the key to surface WWTW issues to be prioritised, even after the devastating WWTW condition.
Also with depleting financial resources, it is key to focus on the critical assets, whose failure has the maximum impact on the water systems. Operational baseline identification is also recommended for the bare minimum funds necessary to keep the systems alive. Finally, this paper emphasises on the importance of good governance if we are to “turn the tide”, and be competitive in the global platform, and at least protect ourselves and our generations to come.
Thursday, 27 June 2024
13:00 – 14:00 (SAST)
Fees: SAAMA Members – No charge
Non-members – R450
Please note this webinar is CPD accredited, and members who attend the session will be awarded 0.1 point. Registrants who do not attend will not receive any CPD points.
About the Speaker: Siviwe Bunge
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Siviwe Humelton Bunge Chairs the ERWAT Asset Management Steering Committee responsible for the development, implementation, and maintenance of the Asset Management System. He holds a BTech (Eng.) Mechanical, BSc (Eng.) Electromechanical, and MSc (Eng.) Petroleum. He is ECSA registered as a candidate engineer, and a GCC Certificate holder.
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