Taps turn on at Green Square
Australia’s largest urban stormwater recycling scheme has been switched on in Sydney’s Green Square, diverting up to 320 million litres of polluted stormwater from waterways each year.
The $8 million stormwater scheme will treat and pipe water directly into residential, commercial and community buildings.Up to 900,000 litres of treated stormwater will be provided daily for use in washing machines, to flush toilets, and in parks and gardens.
For the first time in Australia, residents will be able to move into their new apartments and use recycled stormwater from their taps.
According to Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore, the consumption of drinking water in Green Square will be halved.
“Not only will we be saving water but reducing costs as well – it’s expected water bills will be cut for residents and businesses by 10 cents a kiloliter,” she says.
City of Sydney says the Green Square town centre, positioned above a major stormwater flow path, is the perfect location for a recycled stormwater scheme.
Stormwater will be harvested from the two kilometre drain that runs underground from Epsom Road in Zetland to Alexandra Canal and pumped into a treatment plant at the former South Sydney Hospital site on Joynton Avenue.
The water will then be treated by a combination of high-tech ‘ultrafiltration’, which removes solids and pathogens, and ‘reverse osmosis’, which reduces its salt concentration, before being sent to two 0,000 litre underground storage tanks.
From there, the recycled water will be distributed around the town centre via a network of purpose-built purple pipes. Existing residential and City-owned buildings are already connected to the scheme, and new buildings throughout the area will be connected as they are completed.
When fully developed, the 278-hectare Green Square urban renewal area will accommodate close to 61,000 people living in 30,0 new homes and provide around 21,000 permanent jobs.
“Growing populations and high density living calls for an increased demand for water, not only to drink but to flush toilets, wash clothes, water gardens and irrigate parks,” Moore says.
The project shows that it is possible to become a “water sensitive city” and to achieve “the most ambitious sustainability goals in major urban developments”.