In a context of water stress, fast-growing populations and climate emergency, many African countries are struggling to provide their people with sufficient clean water. In Windhoek, capital of Namibia, heat causes 83% of rainwater to evaporate, making it one of the world’s most arid countries. In addition, Namibia doesn’t benefit from any nearby water courses.

As reusing wastewater seems to be the most effective bulwark against scarcity, more and more projects to give water a second life are emerging. Indeed, recycled wastewater is the only resource that increases in step with economic growth. The city of Windhoek thus decided in 1968 to recycle wastewater to reintroduction it into its water supply network, making it the first city in the world to reuse domestic wastewater for human consumption. To face the continuous rapid population growth, a new treatment plant had to be built in 2002. Windhoek’s water treatment plant uses cutting-edge technologies that mimic nature, such as an activated sludge process and maturation ponds, to eliminate all possible health hazards.

To recycle water is to boost its productiveness. This is a key issue for manufacturers when

you consider that it takes 400,000 litters of water to make a car, 11,000 litters to make

a pair of jeans and 1,300 litters for a cellphone. As for the city, since 2002, the plant has been granted over a third of the city’s drinking water in the form of tap water used by almost 400 000 residents. The Windhoek treatment plant has become a global benchmark and a model for innovative and sustainable water management. It is also an example of a successful public-private partnership that is increasingly visited by officials from across Africa as well as numerous experts from Australia, Singapore, and the USA.

Such solution protects nature by limiting the risks of pollution discharges into the environment. This circular economy model strengthens countries’ water self-sufficiency by giving them access to a reliable resource located within their territory, and therefore protected from adventurous neighbours.

Photo by Olivier Bruchez on Flickr