5 minute read
Wastewater treatment plants – that you cannot see, hear or smell
A fully functional sewage treatment plant installed at Curro Bloemfontein
Celebrating over a decade in business, the owner and founder of Maskam Water – Gerhard Cronje – talks to Kirsten Kelly about the wastewater treatment industry.
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How and why did Maskam Water begin? GC Like most businesses, Maskam Water was born out of a need. I was asked to source an on-site wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) that must be installed underground, cannot be heard and is odourless. Furthermore, the effluent had to be used for irrigation purposes. I simply could not find anything locally that would meet the customer’s needs.
A few months later, the US Commerical Service contacted me. Zoeller from the USA was looking for a distributor for its pumps in the Western Cape. As this solution was unique, I imported a few of these pumps and then enquired about WWTPs. Zoeller supplied those too, and introduced me to its plants. I presented these to a local municipality as well as the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS). After positive feedback, I imported and installed the first WWTP in August 2010. Called the Clarus Fusion Series Treatment System, the WWTP is a drop-in system used in decentralised applications where the effluent quality needs to meet or exceed DWS standards.
After the first installation, we started to receive orders from referrals, and Maskam Water was born. To date, we have installed 298 plants in South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique, Mauritius, as well as the UAE and now the USA.
Are all of your WWTPs imported? In 2016, Maskam Water started to manufacture some of the smaller plants locally to reduce shipping times and costs. In 2018, we began to manufacture some of the bigger models. This year, we have exported our first unit to the USA. While our plants are an American product, it has been found that it is far
Gerhard Cronje, owner and founder, Maskam Water
more cost-effective to build these plants in South Africa and export them to the USA due to the exchange rate.
Why use the Clarus Fusion Series Treatment System over a septic tank? Traditionally, septic tanks are used in rural areas that are far from the metros. A septic tank will break down solids, but it cannot treat water. With septic tanks, there is a high probability that impurities will pollute groundwater. While the National Water Act (No. 36 of 1998) does not prevent septic tanks from being built, it does specify a level of water quality that
has to be reached before discharge, and a septic tank cannot reach that level of water quality. Furthermore, honey suckers are needed to remove wastewater from septic tanks and transport the wastewater to municipal WWTPs. This is costly and often inconvenient. Therefore, many municipalities no longer approve the installation of septic tanks.
Can these WWTPs be retrofitted? You can retrofit with the Clarus Fusion Series Treatment System to any building and recover 100% of your wastewater. This is different from greywater systems, where there may be a problem as greywater often ties into sewer lines inside a building. In these cases, greywater cannot be separated from blackwater and the Fusion is the only answer to harvesting wastewater (grey- and blackwater) on-site.
What barriers have you experienced when selling your WWTPs? In some municipalities, there are outdated by-laws stating that only the municipality can treat wastewater. Installing conservancy tanks or septic tanks does not require any applications but the installation of a WWTP requires a general authorisation from DWS, which can be a lengthy process.
Another barrier is a lack of skill. There are very few wastewater treatment specialists. Therefore, Maskam Water provides a free consulting service to engineers and architects. We create a solution around a customer’s requirements.
Additionally, there will always be resistance to something new. When Maskam Water opened in 2010, we were a new company with a new technology and a new international supplier. At the time, centralised WWTPs were mostly functional and many engineers adopted a ‘wait and see’ approach. Over the years, we have built a library of case studies with our successful installations and have witnessed an increased interest and uptake in our technologies.
What case study displays your WWTP’s unique features best? We installed a WWTP for the Department of Environmental Affairs and Planning. This is a commercial building in Cape Town’s city centre, within walking distance of the Supreme Court and Parliament buildings. The WWTP is in the courtyard – demonstrating how our technology is odourless and cannot be seen or heard.
Roughly 50% of the building’s wastewater is treated for toilet flushing while the remainder is discharged into the municipal sewer line. Over a million litres of potable water is saved per year. This would be a great project to duplicate in other office buildings or shopping centres.
Water reuse is no-brainer – why is it not implemented at a bigger scale? At the moment, it is not possible to treat wastewater at municipal works and then pump it back for reuse. There would need to be a new pipeline and pump stations.
The Clarus Fusion Series Treatment System is fully installed underground
• Designed for a rural and urban setup • Consumes minimal power – 60 W per house or 336 W for a grouping of 20 houses • Maintenance on the system is limited to one hour every six months • Fully installed underground (out of sight) • No noise pollution • No odour • Activated sludge system (follows the same treatment process as municipal plants) • Removes nitrates and removes or reduces phosphates • Factory built (requires only a plumber on-site) • Modular – customised to required size • Less wastewater is discharged to municipal WWTPs – putting less pressure on ageing infrastructure • Wastewater is treated and can be reused for non-potable uses (like toilet flushing and irrigation), creating less dependence on municipalities and reducing the use of potable water • Treating wastewater saves money, as less water is purchased by the municipality It is possible to treat effluent to potable standards and pump it back to the potable network. However, reverse osmosis is used to treat water to potable standards and the process creates 30% of highly concentrated brine that cannot be legally discharged. Reverse osmosis is also very expensive (between R25 and R50 per kℓ).
Furthermore, most centralised WWTPs are not built for growing populations in municipalities, so there will come a point when the entire network will have to be built to cater for the growing demand.
Decentralised plants like Maskam Water’s Clarus Fusion Series Treatment System can be used to reduce the demand placed on centralised WWTPs and prolong the life of the entire network. The future of wastewater treatment lies in decentralised systems, like the Clarus Fusion.
