Report a fault
or leak: 13 20 90

Corruption hotline

Printer friendly versionShrink textEnlarge text

Recycling

Dams DesalinationWater EfficiencyLogo of Metropolitan Water Plan. Click here to open the NSW Government's Water For Life website in a new browser window.

By 2015, the NSW Government aims to recycle about 70 billion litres of water a year - that's up to 12% of Sydney's water needs.

In 2010-11, nearly 50 billion litres of recycled water was used in Sydney and the Illawarra. Most of this water would otherwise have come from our drinking supplies.

Increased water recycling is a key focus of the Metropolitan Water Plan and the NSW Government continues to investigate new, innovative and cost effective ways to treat and use recycled water.


Residential water recycling, Rouse Hill
Homes

Australia's largest residential recycling scheme at Rouse Hill provides recycled water to more than 20,000 homes. This will increase to around 36,000 homes.



Hot strip mill, BlueScope Steel
Industry

Sydney Water's largest industrial recycling project at Port Kembla provides about 20 million litres of recycled water a day to BlueScope Steel and the Port Kembla Coal Terminal, saving about 17% of the Illawarra's daily water use.

Hawkesbury-Nepean River, at Penrith
Environment

The St Marys water recycling plant produces up to 18 billion litres a year of highly treated recycled water to help maintain the flow of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River.




Image of golf course irrigation using recycled water.
Irrigation and
agriculture

Sydney Water supplies about 4.6 billion litres of recycled water a year for irrigating farms, golf courses, sports fields, parks and a racecourse.