Water & Wastewater Treatment

6 | november 2015 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Comment C hanges in terminology can tell you a lot about the way an industry sees itself. A few years ago, a sewage treatment works was called exactly that, but then it was typically retitled a wastewater treatment works; these days, the term 'water recycling centre' is gaining ground. The idea, of course, is to stress that nothing in the wastewater treatment process need actually be wasted: sludge can become valuable fuel or fertiliser, while treated wastewater can either be reused or returned to the environment where it rejoins the natural water cycle. But does the reality match up to the terminology? While it's true that great strides have been made in resource recovery over the years, especially in utilising and getting value out of sludge, most people's understanding of the term 'water recycling' would be that The spin cycle the treated water would be used for something, rather than just being put back into a river. Yet water is not yet so scarce in this country that water reuse in this sense stacks up economically. Nevertheless, the term is an aspirational one. Talking about water recycling not only implies that water put back into a river will eventually find its way back into our fresh water system and drinking glasses – it also suggests that treated wastewater may have a possible role as a resource in future. Could this day be closer than people think? It was interesting to hear the comments of Terry A'Hearn, the chief executive of the Scottish Enviromental Protection Agency (SEPA) when he spoke at WWT's Water Scotland conference last month. A'Hearn hails from Australia, where the drier climate means that the threat of drought is more at the forefront of people's minds than it is in the wetter climes of Glasgow. However, he said that given the prospect of climate change across the world, he expected that people in the future would not tolerate the waste of any water at all; the concept of a wastewater treatment plant that discharged water back to the environment would die out completely. James brockett eDItor Jamesbrockett@fav-house.com Twitter: @wwtmag A distant prospect? Perhaps. But even if water recycling in the full sense is some years from being an imperative in the UK, it seems clear that wasting water is set to become less and less acceptable at every point in the water cycle. The leakage of expensively treated water from pipes is already tolerated much less than it used to be. Tackling wasteful customer behaviour remains high up the agenda for many UK water companies, especially in the water-stressed southern regions. And, as Terry Nash of the Rainwater Harvesting Association argues cogently in this issue of WWT (p8) the time is fast approaching when rainwater and stormwater ought no longer to be seen as a problem but rather a resource to be harnessed. Water is sometimes referred to as our most precious resource: it's an accurate statement in terms of its utility to people, if not in terms of its selling price as a commodity. How long it will take for the resource to be fully appreciated here is uncertain, but one thing is for sure, with growing populations and climate change, water is only going to become more precious with time. -Follow James and WWT colleagues on Twitter: @wwtmag Industry view sponsored by stan cheshire, commercial manager, Hydro International Looking back, what advice would I give to my younger self if I was starting out on a water career today? Something of a cliché, perhaps, but nonetheless a thought-provoking question that sheds light on the good, bad and ugly parts of our industry. It would have been impossible for me as a young engineer at GeC in 1978 to have predicted the technological changes that have so transformed everyone's working lives. back then, correspondence was conducted laboriously by letter via a typing pool, and making phone calls in the morning was frowned upon because they cost more! now that digital communication is almost instant, and remote, flexible working more possible than ever, the only noise in an office is the quiet clicking of a keyboard. but I would Advice to my younger self definitely tell my younger self to keep true to that personal, friendly and collaborative peer-to-peer contact that used to make offices buzz; it should still make the world go round. I didn't choose the water industry as a career – it really chose me around about the time of privatisation; I have no regrets, but change has been a mixed blessing. Privatisation has brought money to build vital new infrastructure that would never have been possible in a nationalised industry. Yet, at the same time, the AmP spending cycle imposed 'boom and bust' on contractors and suppliers. on a personal level, I have been sad to see good friends and excellent engineers lost to the industry during the downturns. For the future, I hope Ofwat is beginning to see that five year cycles are not the way forward. Introducing framework procurement practices have also, in my view, been a double-edged sword, hampering the system with unnecessary red tape, cost and inefficiency, o en at the expense of useful engineer-to-engineer dialogue. Looking forward, it's innovation that will make all the difference for the water industry, something frameworks have tended to stifle. encouragingly, investment in research and development has continued in companies like Hydro International and there are signs that the best and newest technologies from around the world are attracting interest. AMP6's emphasis on Totex demands a more proactive maintenance approach to maximising lifetime performance. For me, that's actually a return to how things used to be, and how they should be. In future, Industry 4.0 data exchange will revolutionise condition monitoring alongside better planned service approaches. If I had just one piece of advice for my younger self it would be this: Keep true to your engineering professionalism and never underestimate the power of personal contact. be trusted and respected for what you do. That's a lifetime's achievement for anyone to aspire to. - Stan Cheshire retires this month a er a 37-year career in the industry.

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