The Standards Institute of Israel, through the South Africa Trade and Economic Office of Israel, a matchmaking organisation aimed at creating partnerships between Israeli and South African companies, has put forward an offer to the South African Bureau of Standards to promote a new international standard on wastewater treatment and reuse.

Israel’s commercial attaché to South Africa, Or Pearl, says that the two countries face the same environmental and water-related challenges and should cooperate in order to ovecome them.

Most of the wastewater produced today is treated and huge quantities of effluent is discharged into the environment, eventually reaching drinking water sources or the sea.

“Wastewater and effluent are, as a matter of fact, more than 99,8% water and only less than 0,2% contaminants. Therefore, it makes sense to treat the wastewater to reduce the contaminant concentration to a level that will allow the use of this water, which is the main component of the wastewater,” says Pearl.

The reuse of treated wastewater for agricultural irrigation in Israel has been implemented for several decades and, in the past few years, has been applied for other purposes. Currently, Israel reuses about 65% of the wastewater produced in the country. Constant development of the technologies of wastewater treatment, conveyance and reuse takes place in Israel. Solutions for local and regional systems are being developed there to allow for an increase in wastewater reuse.

Because of the international interest in the development of effluent reuse and the many regulatory, technical, managerial, health and environmental aspects involved in the correct reuse of effluents, it has become necessary to produce an international standard or guideline that will establish the basic rules, demands and procedures, says the Standards Institute of Israel’s Yaron Ben-Ari.

“This will ensure that effluent reuse will be carried out in an appropriate manner, diminish the negative impact of the disposal of effluents into the environment and augment the water potential available in a certain area,” he says.

The Israelis are, therefore, promoting the preparation of standards that will take into consideration the needs of both developed and developing countries, and that will be appropriate for wastewater companies and projects of all sizes. These standards will promote guidelines for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of treated wastewater reuse projects; the procedures and means of reducing the negative impact of effluent reuse on crops and soils; and provide guidelines for the procedures and means to protect potable water sources against the negative effects of effluent.

More specific standards will be deter-mined at a later stage.

Since its founding, Israel has been coping with severe water shortages and treats water as a national priority. The country has con-stantly developed novel and efficient water technologies, which can benefit the world as it increasingly deals with water scarcity concerns owing to global warming. 
“Israel’s success in answering the country’s water needs stems from its ability to incorporate an extensive variety of solutions under multiple constraints,” says Pearl.

It is with this in mind that Israel will host the second international Watec 2009 conference and exhibition, being held from November 17 to 19. The conference will tackle the current global challenges facing humankind and the issues related to irrigation, desalination, water treatment, management systems, water security, leakage control, agriculture and energy.

Hosting participants from the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia, the exhibition is an opportunity to discover the latest innovations from start-up businesses, established companies, and researchers that can help drive private and public initiatives and accelerate results.

“Watec 2009 will feature an international problem-solving forum for water, energy and environmental technology issues. The rapidly growing global population, the revolution in urbanisation, together with economic and environmental dynamics, are posing tremendous challenges to governments, academia, industry and to potential investors,” says Watec chairperson Booky Oren.

Providing water and energy has become a pressing social, economic and political imperative. “These issues are highly interconnected and finding meaningful solutions requires a broadly-based collaborative and interdisciplinary approach,” he notes.

This year’s conference will focus on the water energy nexus, as well as other topics, such as water efficiency solutions, desalination, efficient irrigation, water purification and alternative energy solutions.

“Israel, as an innovative source of water and environmental technologies, is the ideal venue for this important event,” concludes Oren.

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