What you can do

Living Sustainably

Waterwise

Reuse and recycling

Water recycling, reuse and recovery can save your business both water and money. Instead of discharging used water (wastewater) from your site or workplace to the sewerage system, capture and divert it for use in another process.

Sydney Water currently recycles 30 million litres of wastewater per day. That's equivalent to the water in 30 Olympic-sized swimming pools. By 2010, that figure is expected to increase to 83 million litres per day.

Fact

Improved treatment technologies make recovery and reuse economically attractive and achievable. Wastewater can be treated to a standard where it can be used and applied to industrial processes, for flushing toilets and irrigation functions. The quality depends on its application and treatment varies according to the intended use.

Water from cooling tower blowdown, steam condensate, boiler blowdown and stormwater are great sources for waste water as is the production and manufacturing process. For example you could reuse water from one process as rinse water in another compatible process.

Rainwater collection systems can also provide water for applications such as irrigation and toilet flushing.