Wastewater - Turning Problem to Solution

for evidence-based policymaking, regulations, planning and investments at all levels.

Centre for Water Security and Sustainable Management and K Water 2022). The project developed an SDG 6 Policy Support System to support data-limited countries. It helps them to use the evidence and capacity that was available from multiple sectors, identify where there are gaps and develop the enabling environment to address these gaps. The ambition of the project was to progress delivery of SDG 6 in terms of the development of appropriate capacities, policy and institutions, ensuring integrity, financing, gender considerations and addressing disaster risk reduction.

The project “Water in the world we want” was developed to address the challenge of missing data and the enabling environment for generating consistent, reliable evidence recognizing the risk that this could undermine achieving global policy objectives (United Nations Office for Sustainable Development, United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, the International

Increase communications, awareness and accountability

The application of appropriate technology is critical for the safe reuse of resources recovered from wastewater. However, this is not sufficient to ensure success in the uptake of resources recovered from wastewater. The issue of trust is at the heart of changing perception of wastewater reuse and increased acceptance and the required behaviour change both individually and collectively. However, confidence and trust are built slowly over time and can be lost quickly, rapidly undermined by failure. They require transparency and accountability across the responsible governmental and industry bodies delivering wastewater reuse options. Clear and transparent regulations, awareness, training and communication are key to building trust (Salgot and Folch 2018). Education and awareness: These apply to those working in the sector as well as the end users and public. Salgot and Folch (2018) identified that sufficient training is needed to ensure there is appropriate capacity so that practices for producing the resources from wastewater are safe to use. There is also a need to train the eventual end user so that resources can be applied in a safe and appropriate way. In addition, they identify clear, honest communication as being critical to changing attitudes and behaviour, being inclusive to engage all sectors of society including women, youth, Indigenous Peoples and marginalized communities. The integration of gender perspectives should be considered in planning, and implementation activities including training which should be gender sensitive, ensuring participation of both women and men.

Examples of quality standards

In the United States, specific regulations are established by the states, with no federal-level regulations specifically governing water reuse. The state of California enacted a regulation for water reuse in agriculture as early as 1918, making it the first state in the United States to distinguish between two types of recycled water: that for non potable applications and potable applications. Non-potable regulations are separated into four different levels of treatment depending on the intended application. Potable recycled water-use applications are managed by the California Water Code (section 13561) and are separated into “direct potable reuse”, “indirect potable reuse for groundwater recharge” and “reservoir water augmentation” (California State Water Resources Control Board 2021). China has developed highly detailed standards to support the development of water reuse. The Chinese Government has enacted a series of regulations for a variety of reuse applications over the past 20 years. In comparison, the European Union has only provided guidance on the minimum requirements for water reuse in 2020, with a requirement that this should have been transposed into national law by 26 June 2023 (Bauer and Wagner 2022).

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