Recycling water for Australia's future - the case of two Victorian cities

Historically, a secure water supply has been critical to a city’s survival. In Australia this reality has been heightened as the water storages of many of the country’s major urban centres drop to critically low levels leading to a water crisis. The use of recycled water has been proposed as one solution to this crisis. The experience of many recycled water projects around the world has demonstrated that community acceptance is critical to their success, especially projects which propose close personal use of recycled water, such as drinking or showering. This paper reports findings of a research project investigating public perceptions of recycled water at two commercial case study sites in Victoria: the Council House 2 Building of Melbourne City Council in Melbourne; and the Bendigo Bank Head Office in Bendigo. Both buildings will incorporate the use of recycled water for non-potable (non-drinking) uses such as toilet flushing and garden irrigation. An on-line survey was undertaken at each location prior to the use of recycled water commencing. The paper compares attitudes of respondents in the two locations, including: the perceived need to use recycled water; trust in the water authority; fairness in recycled water system implementation; perceived quality of the recycled water; satisfaction with the recycled water system; and information provision. Results indicate that there were significant differences in attitudes between locations. Results indicate the importance for governments and the water authority to gain and maintain trust of communities in order to ensure recycled water use acceptance. Introduction A secure supply of water is critical to a city’s survival. Water storage levels in many of Australia’s major urban areas are at record low levels, leading to a water crisis. This crisis is due to a number of factors including population growth, increasing demand for water, water use in excess of need, and climate change. Many solutions have been proposed to solve this crisis, ranging from those that require low human commitment, but high technological commitment such as desalination and recycling, to those that require high human commitment and low technological commitment such as demand management through water use restrictions (Hurlimann 2006). Demand management is typically the first step in water resource management, however its impact in the Australian context seems limited, as many cities still use water in excess of need despite being on water use restrictions (Hurlimann 2007d). Australians are amongst the highest consumers of water per capita in the world (World Resources Institute et al. 2005). Receiving more attention than demand management in Australia is the potential of water recycling to ease demand on potable (drinking) water supplies. Many levels of Australian government have set water recycling targets, for example in 2002 the Victorian Government set a target to recycle 20% of wastewater by 2010 (Victorian Government 2002). This policy has since been superseded by other water plans of the Victorian Government (2004; 2006) which set out various water recycling and alternate water supply scenarios such as mandating third pipe systems (residential systems that deliver both drinking water and recycled water for non-potable uses in separate pipes). These water plans have become quickly outdated due to the rapid onset of drought. At present many regional areas of Australia are in a worse predicament for water than the major cities, and thus face more severe water shortages and restrictions to water use. For example as of June 2007, the State of Victoria’s regional urban centre of Bendigo had 4% capacity of water storages (dams) and was on stage 4a (of 4) water restrictions, while Melbourne – the capital city had 28.4% capacity of water storages (dams) full and was on stage 3 (of 4) water restrictions. The two Victorian commercial case studies used in this research provide a comparison of the capital city (Melbourne) and an urban regional centre (Bendigo). The case studies are the Council House 2 (CH2) building in Melbourne and the Bendigo Bank (BB) building in Bendigo, which will both incorporate recycled water use for non potable (non-drinking) purposes. The details of each case study site are presented below. Council House 2 (CH2) The CH2 building is an environmentally innovative building of the City of Melbourne. In 2005 the Green Building Council of Australia awarded CH2 a ‘six green star rating’ which 'represents world leadership in office building design' (City of Melbourne 2007). A major intention of the CH2 building is efficient water use. In addition to water efficient fixtures and appliances, the design of the CH2 building includes a ‘sewer mine’. Sewage from the main sewer in Melbourne, along with sewage generated on site, will be treated to a standard suitable for all non-potable (non-drinking) uses and will ISBN 978-0-646-48194-4 SOAC 2007 517 meet all Class A water criteria through a separate water supply system (Othman and Jayasuriya 2006). The recycled water will supply the CH2 cooling tower system, plant watering and toilet flushing needs and is also intended to be used for street cleaning and street tree watering within the central business district (CBD). The building construction was completed in November 2006 and was occupied soon after (540 staff capacity). Some delays in the recycled water system coming on line have been experienced, but recycled water use is expected to be fully operational by mid 2007. The CH2 survey was conducted in August 2006 – at that time Melbourne’s dam levels were at 47% of capacity. Bendigo Bank (BB) The BB Headquarters is an innovative building that is currently under construction in the Bendigo CBD, which is located 150km north west of Melbourne. It is anticipated that construction will be completed in stages with the first occupancy commencing at the end of 2007. The building will service 900 staff on completion. The building incorporates ecologically sustainable principles in its design and construction. It is estimated to save 51% of energy use, 1175t CO2e/annum and around 17,000L of water per day (Sustainability Victoria 2006). Reducing reliance on reticulated water was a key design consideration for the building due to Bendigo’s drought-vulnerable water supply (Sustainability Victoria 2006). A wastewater treatment plant will treat both black and grey water, providing Class A water for use to flush toilets and irrigate gardens. The BB survey was conducted in February 2007 – at that time Bendigo’s dam levels were at 7.5% of capacity. A pipeline connecting Bendigo’s water supply system with the Waranga Western Channel (part of the Goulburn-Murray Water system) is currently under construction and is expected to be completed by August this year. If not, the region is sure to face the same fate as its neighbours such as Euroa who have run out of water completely and now rely on water tankers to supply their needs. Attitudes to recycled water use Recycled water use can reduce demand for potable water, thus it can make a potential contribution to easing the water crisis in Australia. Recycled water use can occur for many different purposes including industrial, agricultural and domestic. In Australia the use of recycled water is low but increasing. Currently 4% of total water use is recycled water (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006). The majority of this is used in agriculture, thus the general Australian community have very little experience with recycled water use. Experience from around the world shows that support from local communities is critical to the success of recycled water projects. A number of projects around the world have failed due to a lack of local community support (Hurlimann and McKay 2004), however these have been predominantly projects which involved close personal use of recycled water such as drinking or showering with recycled water. Various studies have found that acceptance of recycled water use increases as the use of recycled water becomes increasingly less personal (Bruvold and Ward 1970; Marks et al. 2006; McKay and Hurlimann 2003). Given the relative lack of experience the Australian community has with recycled water use, projects should be carefully introduced to ensure the success of policy aims. Across the world the major use of recycled water is for agricultural purposes. Increasingly common are third pipe systems or dual water supply systems. In Australia there are a number of well known third pipe systems including Rouse Hill and Newington in Sydney and Mawson Lakes in South Australia (Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering 2004). The use of recycled water in commercial buildings is currently limited, however is implemented widely in Japan. Research was conducted in Japan in 1999 with occupants of 125 commercial buildings using recycled water mainly for toilet flushing (Yamagata et al. 2002). Acceptance was strong, but problems with odour of the recycled water were reported. Use of recycled water in commercial areas is not yet occurring on a wide scale in Australia, but could provide the opportunity to save significant amounts of water. CH2 and the BB Head Office will be amongst the first commercial buildings to use recycled water in Australia. Preliminary results from this study have indicated that for all uses of recycled water explored (drinking, showering, washing hands, clothes washing, cooling system, public fountains and water features, street cleaning, garden watering, and toilet flushing) there was no difference between locations (BB and CH2) with regards to happiness to use recycled water (Hurlimann 2007c) or perceived risk related to recycled water use (Hurlimann 2007b). This was contrary to anticipation that Bendigo respondents would be more willing to use recycled water because of the lower levels of water storage. Results indicated that it was not location but a re