Sanitation and Wastewater Atlas of Africa

Appendix 2. Impacts, risks and lessons from implementation of Circular Economy Approaches (CEA)

??? CEA 1

Lessons

Risks

Positive impacts

• Reuse of wastewater has environmental, social and economic benefits.

• Simple treatment processes cannot effectively treat the inflow of industrial wastewater to ensure safe reuse in agriculture. • Lack of efficient water treatment and irrigation methods, e.g. flood and drip irrigation to minimize contact with crops

• Using treated wastewater to cultivate forests enhances microclimate, increases biomass availability and biodiversity, and improves environmental sanitation. • Availability of nutrients in treated wastewater reduces the demand for inorganic fertilizers, thereby reducing crop production cost for farmers. • New forests serve leisure purposes for tourists and neighbouring communities. CEA 1 can help develop golf tourism. • Jobs and livelihoods are supported in areas around the secondary forests.

Environmental

• Need to manage negative perception and potential stigmatization through appropriate awareness-raising and education programmes • Treated wastewater quality must be monitored to minimize long-term negative impacts. • Sanitation safety planning must be implemented to safeguard public health. production or evergreen citrus trees that can absorb water year-round, does not start until the first harvest, which does not support quick returns on investment. Many farmers call in particular for advanced treatment to grow highly profitable cash crops such as vegetables. • Water reuse based on tariffs alone may not be cost-effective. • To ensure success, it is important to present a compelling value proposition against the competing water or resources. • Operating and maintaining wastewater treatment plants to meet treated water quality is challenging. Cost recovery is required to ensure adequate operation and maintenance of wastewater treatment plants. • Soil conditioning is required to improve plant growth; the nutrients in water are not sufficient. • Capital-intensive; long timespan for payback. • The payback period for investments in perennial plants, such as trees for wood

• Poor quality water is very likely if treatment is inefficient. • Negative impact of community social stigma associated with wastewater reuse

Social

• Unstable water tariffs affect cost recovery. In Morocco, golf courses pay 3.6 times higher fees than farmers. • Lower demand for treated wastewater usage due to the subsidized rates for availability of, or accessibility to, freshwater • Difficulties in aligning wastewater selling rates with the operation and maintenance (O&M) cost of water treatment and transfer

• Private-sector organizations can support the management of the treatment facility e.g. in Tiznit (Morocco), the treated wastewater tariffs are managed by a farmer association.

Profitability/ cost recovery

• Wrong selection of crops and tree varieties could make the CEA financially and economically unfeasible.

• Simple treatment technologies such as lagoons can deliver adequate quality water for reuse in agriculture, especially if drip irrigation is used.

Innovation

• Application restricted to certain types of crop • Limited private-sector investments in wastewater treatment and reuse in Africa • Water conveyance challenges are expected if the wastewater treatment plant is not suitably sited.

• The Marrakech wastewater treatment plant is financed through a public-private partnership between the State and 17 golf operators (30 per cent of the investment cost borne by the golf operators and they pay a connection fee to use the treated wastewater). This has increased treated wastewater use and reduced financial burden on the State.

Scalability – replicability

• Scientific studies to demonstrate safety and benefits could help advance policies.

• Unfavourable policy environment for the use of treated wastewater for irrigation • Reuse standards might require regular revision. • Overlapping responsibilities disturb enforcement and implementation of reuse guidelines.

• Enforcement of regulations outside conventional schemes is challenging.

Policy

279

SANITATION AND WASTEWATER ATLAS OF AFRICA