Media Release

21 May 2007

Australia’s Largest Industrial Water Recycling Scheme Reaches Impressive Milestone

BlueScope Steel has now saved three billion litres of drinking water through the use of recycled water in their steelmaking process.

The milestone has been reached just eight months after the switch was flicked to commission Sydney Water’s Wollongong recycled water plant, which is providing high grade water to BlueScope.

Steel making involves extremely high water use. Three billion litres saved by BlueScope Steel is equivalent to 3,000 Olympic swimming pools of drinking water.

This scheme will enable BlueScope to save more than seven billion litres of drinking water every year.

Prior to commissioning the recycled water plant, BlueScope’s average daily demand for water from Avon Dam was around 37 million litres.

By providing the steelmaker with an alternative source of water about 20 per cent of Avon Dam’s drinking water supply is being saved each year.

The scheme produces very high grade water at high pressure through the use of sophisticated filters.

The recycled water is then pumped to a dedicated reservoir at Berkeley and from there its distributed and used in the steel-making process at the BlueScope plant at Port Kembla.

Sydney Water is currently supplying around 19 million litres of recycled water to the steel factory every day. It is the largest industrial recycling project in Australia.

This means that a high proportion of wastewater from the Wollongong, Bellambi and Port Kembla catchments is being recycled for use at BlueScope Steel.

The recycled water used is the equivalent of Wollongong’s entire nightly wastewater output being used by the steelworks rather than being treated and discharged into the ocean.

BlueScope Steel is the perfect example of what can be achieved when everyone plays their part.

Recycling treated wastewater is a key component of the NSW Government’s Metropolitan Water Plan.

The NSW Government has committed to increasing recycling from current levels of 15 billion litres a year to 70 billion litres a year by 2015.

Future schemes including the Western Sydney Recycled Water Initiative, new housing developments at Ropes Crossing and Hoxton Park and the industrial reuse project at Camellia, combined with almost 20 existing recycling schemes will all contribute to meeting that target.

Efforts to ensure long-term water security also include accessing groundwater sources, harvesting stormwater, actively encouraging the use of water saving devices and desalination.

Additional treatment works at the Wollongong site will provide a further 600 million litres of recycled water each year.

The Port Kembla Coal Terminal, Wollongong City Council and Wollongong Golf Club will all receive recycled water to use in their operations, which will bring further drinking water savings by mid 2008.

Wollongong City Council plans to use recycled water to irrigate Greenhouse Park and Vikings Rugby Field.

The golf club will use the water to maintain fairways, and the coal terminal will use recycled water for several purposes including dust suppression.

Sydney Water will continue to work closely with high water users in businesses, manufacturers and commercial sectors to save precious drinking water.

Fact sheet

Benefits of the BlueScope Scheme

• Reduce the draw on drinking water from Avon Dam by up to 20 per cent or 7.3 billion litres per year.
  
• Improve water quality at many Illawarra beaches, particularly those near the Bellambi, Wollongong and Port Kembla sewage treatment plants. Fishermans Beach at Port Kembla now receives the highest water quality rating of four stars from the Department of Environment and Climate Change’s Beachwatch program.
  
• Reduce ocean discharge from these plants by 40 per cent.
  
• Reduce impacts on sensitive marine environments.

Water recycling at BlueScope Steel
The Wollongong Recycled Water Plant is part of the $215 million Illawarra Wastewater Strategy. The strategy is now complete and has transformed wastewater management in the Illawarra through recycling, catering for population growth of around 20 per cent by 2021 and improving ocean water quality.

Huge volumes of water are used around-the-clock in iron and steel making processes for cooling plant and equipment and for environmental purposes like reducing dust from roadways, trucks and stockpiles.

BlueScope Steel's Port Kembla steelworks remains the largest consumer of fresh water in Sydney and the Illawarra. Approximately 37 million litres of water is used throughout the plant every day along with 850 million litres of salt water for cooling.

Inside the recycled water plant
Tertiary treated wastewater is forced through microfiltration units, which are packed with thousands of hollow fibres. Any particle larger than 0.2 microns in diameter is captured by the fibres.

The microfiltered water is forced again at high pressure through the even finer barriers of the reverse osmosis units. Coiled inside each reverse osmosis cylinder is a fine polymer membrane that blocks particles larger than 0.001 micron, removing viruses, nutrients, dissolved metals and salts.

The water produced by reverse osmosis meets stringent NSW Health standards.

Recycled water is pumped to Sydney Water’s reservoir in Berkeley, dedicated to supplying industrial and now recycled water to BlueScope Steel, from where it flows through two pipelines to the Port Kembla steelworks. The recycled water supply is completely separate from the community’s drinking water system.

The recycled water plant can be expanded to accommodate future customers’ needs.

 

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