July 04, 2008, 14:00
A high-tech water management project has been unveiled in the Eastern Cape, said the Department of Science and Technology and the German Embassy.
The project is a collaboration between Germany and South Africa to improve water quality in rural settlements, said deputy science and technology minister Derrick Hanekom.
The facility is located in the rural Ikwezi local municipality in Jansenville. It is a demonstration unit of a Communal Water House (CWH), which used low-water consumption sanitation methods. The main goal of the CWH is to use clean water for drinking and cooking and to re-use the run-off water for laundry, sanitation, irrigation or other domestic purposes. This is through a grey water treatment device housed in the CWH.
Solar panels are to be used for heating water. The CWH is designed to service between 200 to 800 people. The German federal ministry invested R21 million in the project and the CWH demonstrator is the first of its kind in South Africa.
"It is hoped that such initiatives will be rolled out to other municipalities in South Africa in the future," Hanekom said. "This project clearly demonstrates how, through science and technology, we can meet the needs of the poor.
Project to benefit the poor
"We are confident that this cutting edge technology will enable us to reach the last 12% of our people who currently have no access to water." German ambassador to South Africa Dieter Haller said: "Our partnering with the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and its project team aims to benefit the poor and to contribute jointly to better livelihoods in South Africa."
The key partners in this project are the DST, the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, the Ikwezi Municipality and the University of Potsdam in Germany. South Africa and Germany have a fruitful history of science and technology collaboration, with approximately 80 active projects between the two countries in areas such as energy, biodiversity, geoscience and advanced manufacturing.
It’s hoped that the project will result in intensified co-operation. The main areas of collaboration included: sustainability research (land use, energy and climate change); advanced manufacturing (in materials and robotics); information and communications technologies; biotechnology; human and social dynamics as well as astronomy. - Sapa
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