Vic: Garden hose revival as tap turns on recycled water

AAP General News (Australia)
12-01-2007
Vic: Garden hose revival as tap turns on recycled water

By Catherine Best

MELBOURNE, Dec 1 AAP - The drought has broken in one Melbourne suburb.

At least that's the illusion at Sandhurst Club estate as residents today dusted off
their garden hoses and car washing sponges.

The new suburb has become Melbourne's first to be connected to recycled water after
Water Minister Tim Holding today turned the tap on a $6 million recycling system.

The drought busting scheme means residents can water their gardens daily and wash their
cars - guilt free.

Far from being water wasters, 600 households will no longer be flushing valuable drinking
water down the toilet.

And at the same time they will be helping protect Gunnamatta Beach.

Millions of litres of treated sewage that would otherwise flow into the ocean is being
transformed into class A recycled water and diverted to toilets and garden hoses.

Mr Holding said the scheme at Sandhurst, near Cranbourne in Melbourne's southeast,
would save 300 million litres of drinking water a year.

The recycled water will also be used to quench the club's golf courses and public open
spaces, with another 1,200 sites to come on line.

Purple taps, pipes, hoses and meters enable residents to distinguish between recycled
and drinking water.

"The use of recycled water in residential homes for non-drinking purposes like garden
watering, washing the car and toilet flushing will help to reduce demand on our drinking
water supplies," Mr Holding said.

"Over the next 25 years more than 40,000 new homes in Melbourne's southeast will connect
to recycled water as part of a Brumby Government initiative that will save approximately
four billion litres of water each year."

Stephen Head, managing director of estate developers Links Living, said the scheme,
run by South East Water, had enabled Sandhurst to become a climate change suburb of the
future.

"Through the longest drought in Australia's history we have been able to build an entire
drought proof suburb with two championship golf courses which will cope with extremes
of climate change and ensure the three thousand residents a green environment," he said.

Mr Head said water recycling should be built into all new housing developments as part
of the effort to drought-proof Melbourne.

AAP cmb/arb/de

KEYWORD: WATER VIC

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