Wastewater treatment plants

Sydney Water collects and treats more than 1.3 billion litres of wastewater from homes and businesses every day. Our wastewater network includes over 24,000km of pipes and services around 1.7 million homes and businesses in Sydney, the Illawarra and the Blue Mountains.

At the wastewater treatment plants wastewater is treated before being reused or discharged to rivers or oceans in accordance with strict licence conditions issued by the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA). The EPA monitors the effect of discharges on water quality and aquatic life.

Sydney Water beneficially uses 100% of biosolids captured for agricultural, land rehabilitation or horticultural purposes.

There are 16 wastewater treatment plants.

Treatment plant	Treatment level	Discharge (ML/ day)1	Population	Discharge location
Bellambi	Primary (Includes screening, actiflow treatment and disinfection).	0		Treated wastewater discharged at Bellambi Point during wet weather.
Bondi	High-rate primary	126.5	274,800	Deepwater ocean outfall 2.2km from shoreline, 63m max. water depth, 512m diffuser zone2.
Brooklyn	Tertiary and disinfection using ultraviolet light and membrane bioreactor technology.	0.4	1,400	Hawkesbury River, Brooklyn
Cronulla	Tertiary and disinfection	53	223,700	Potter Point
Fairfield	Primary (Includes chemically-assisted sedimentation)	0		Treated wastewater discharged to Orphan School Creek (to Georges River) during wet weather.
Hornsby Heights	Tertiary (Includes additional Phosphorus and Nitrogen removal and disinfection)	6.7	28,300	Calna Creek to Berowra Creek
Malabar	High-rate primary	498	1,584,100	Deepwater ocean outfall 3.6km from shoreline, 82m max. water depth, 720m diffuser zone2
North Head	High-rate primary	307.9	1,167,600	Deepwater ocean outfall 3.7km from shoreline, 65m max. water depth, 762m diffuser zone2
North Richmond	Tertiary (Includes additional Phosphorus removal and disinfection)	0.9	3,800	Redbank Creek to the Hawkesbury River
Port Kembla	Primary (Includes screening, degritting, primary sedimentation and disinfection)	0	191,400	Treated wastewater discharged at Red Point during wet weather.
Riverstone	Tertiary (Includes additional Phoshorus removal and disinfection)	1.8	8,700	Eastern Creek to South Creek
Shellharbour	Secondary and disinfection	16.9	65,600	Offshore outfall with diffuser zone
Wallacia	Tertiary (Includes additional Phosphorus and Nitrogen removal and disinfection)	0.8	3,600	Warragamba River
Warriewood	Secondary and disinfection	17	63,700	Turimetta Head
West Hornsby	Tertiary (Includes additional Phosphorus and Nitrogen removal and disinfection)	11.9	53,200	Waitara Creek to Berowra Creek
Winmalee	Tertiary (Includes additional Phosphorus and Nitrogen removal and disinfection)	16.5	59,000	Unnamed creek to the Nepean River

¹ Average daily dry weather discharge.
² Outfall length is the distance from the shoreline to the end of the diffuser zone.

The smaller coastal treatment plants - Warriewood, Cronulla, Port Kembla, Brooklyn, Shellharbour and Bellambi, discharge treated effluent closer to the shore. Approximately 0.5 per cent of Sydney's wastewater is discharged untreated to the ocean at Vaucluse, Diamond Bay and Diamond Bay South.