Cleaned-up and pol­ished waste wa­ter or sewage as an op­tion for drink­ing wa­ter is no­body’s first choice. Re­luc­tance by coun­tries to use treat­ed waste wa­ter per­sists; The Caribbean has an aver­sion to waste wa­ter reuse or re­cy­cled wa­ter. This aver­sion to the re­cy­cling of waste wa­ter is de­scribed as the 'yuck fac­tor' where­by peo­ple have an emo­tion­al re­sponse of dis­gust to the thoughts and feel­ings about re­cy­cled wa­ter, even though the wa­ter has been high­ly treat­ed and is safe for con­sump­tion. Why can't we get over the 'yuck fac­tor' when it comes to re­cy­cled wa­ter?

The con­ta­gion think­ing is that once the wa­ter source has been con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed or de­filed it will al­ways re­main un­clean, re­gard­less of treat­ment. The neg­a­tive as­so­ci­a­tions and stig­mas at­tached to this by so­ci­ety to­day must change and we must look at the po­ten­tial of 'new wa­ter'. How­ev­er, de­spite ad­vanced treat­ment tech­nolo­gies around the world demon­strat­ing that waste wa­ter can be pu­ri­fied be­yond cur­rent drink­ing wa­ter stan­dards, en­tic­ing peo­ple to drink re­cy­cled wa­ter re­quires over­com­ing the ubiq­ui­tous 'yuck fac­tor'.

Wa­ter scarci­ty is one of the most per­va­sive chal­lenges fac­ing com­mu­ni­ties in T&T. Ac­cess to clean wa­ter and short­ages of this pre­cious re­source was ranked as the num­ber one glob­al risk in the World Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum’s 'Glob­al Risks Re­port, 2015.

Parched com­mu­ni­ties across the globe are com­ing up with terms such as toi­let-to-tap con­cepts, aid­ed by mar­ket­ing and ed­u­ca­tion­al cam­paigns. With grow­ing wa­ter scarci­ty in T&T dur­ing the dry sea­son, re­claimed waste wa­ter is an in­creas­ing­ly at­trac­tive op­tion for meet­ing house­hold wa­ter de­mand, es­pe­cial­ly in ur­ban ar­eas.

There is al­so an ur­gent need to col­lect more waste wa­ter treat­ment da­ta from WASA in or­der to re­search bet­ter ways of as­sess­ing and re­duc­ing pub­lic health risks as­so­ci­at­ed with emerg­ing pol­lu­tants from re­claimed waste wa­ter which is an avail­able source of new wa­ter.

In Sin­ga­pore, for ex­am­ple, a waste wa­ter reuse plant has be­come a des­ti­na­tion, draw­ing near­ly mil­lions of vis­i­tors per year, since a wa­ter ed­u­ca­tion­al cen­tre opened in 2003. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly four per cent of Sin­ga­pore’s drink­ing wa­ter re­sources comes from re­cy­cled waste wa­ter which is termed 'new wa­ter'.

Re­silience to wa­ter scarci­ty re­quires a range of so­lu­tions in­clud­ing eco­nom­ic in­cen­tives, reg­u­la­to­ry mea­sures, and in­no­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies. One proven ap­proach to help meet grow­ing wa­ter de­mands, while safe­guard­ing ex­ist­ing wa­ter sup­plies, is waste wa­ter reuse.

Waste wa­ter reuse can, and must, play a cru­cial role as part of a mul­ti-pronged ap­proach to se­cur­ing a re­silient, vi­able wa­ter sup­ply. Wa­ter reuse tech­nolo­gies pro­duce high-qual­i­ty wa­ter at a low­er life-cy­cle cost than de­vel­op­ing new wa­ter sup­ply and de­liv­er a re­silient, drought-re­sis­tant wa­ter source with valu­able eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal ben­e­fits.

Waste wa­ter gets cleansed with mem­branes and ul­tra­vi­o­let dis­in­fec­tion, and most of it goes to the sup­ply in­dus­try, like fac­to­ries that need large quan­ti­ties of high­ly pu­ri­fied wa­ter for op­er­a­tions. The por­tion of treat­ed waste wa­ter that is slat­ed for the taps gets blend­ed with reser­voir wa­ter and cleaned fur­ther be­fore it is piped to house­holds. The tech­nol­o­gy for re­cy­cling waste wa­ter for drink­ing has ex­ist­ed for decades.

While the cur­rent sur­face wa­ter stor­age vol­umes for all ma­jor reser­voirs across T&T were well be­low par, this in­di­cates that the coun­try can meet its ur­ban wa­ter use with re­cy­cled waste wa­ter as a more re­li­able and sus­tain­able wa­ter source. As long as ur­ban house­holds and in­dus­tries con­tin­ue to use large quan­ti­ties of wa­ter, waste wa­ter will be read­i­ly avail­able for reuse. It is in­cum­bent on the wa­ter sec­tor to play a key role in any ed­u­ca­tion dri­ve by high­light­ing suc­cess­ful wa­ter reuse strate­gies around the globe, and demon­strat­ing the mul­ti­ple ben­e­fits and sig­nif­i­cant po­ten­tial of wa­ter reuse to lie at the heart of a mul­ti-pronged ap­proach to com­bat­ing wa­ter scarci­ty.

Dr Ki­ran To­ta-Ma­haraj

Head of Civ­il and En­vi­ron­men­tal En­gi­neer­ing

Cen­tre for Wa­ter, Com­mu­ni­ties and Re­silience(CW­CR)

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West of Eng­land, Bris­tol (UWE Bris­tol)