Religious, philosophical and environmentalist perspectives on potable wastewater reuse in Durban, South Africa

Durban is South Africa's second most populous city and home adherents of many faiths, as well as a wide variety of political, cultural, religious, ethnic and environmental groups who might hold deep philosophical objections to wastewater reuse. It is also widely known that where wastewater recycling has been considered, public concerns have been intense, sometimes leading to the abandonment of initiatives. Project objectives were to determine if there are groups in Durban with - specifically - religious or philosophical objections to the potable reuse of wastewater. The goal was to gain knowledge of the presence of related “show stopping” objections likely to emerge out of Durban's diverse communities should eThekwini Municipality (formerly City of Durban) embark upon a more comprehensive feasibility study of wastewater recycling to potable standards. This study was conducted in four stages: 1) literature review, (2) email survey to international experts, (3) local qualitative interviews, and (4) focus group discussion. The main findings of the study are: (a) No fundamental religious objections to potable wastewater reuse appear to exist either internationally or locally. (b) Concerns among local groups around the environment, global warming, water scarcity and pollution are present. (c) People are willing to think creatively about sustainability. (d) Key concerns, in Durban, are emotional (the “yuk” factor) and/or related to concerns about flagging technical competency. (e) Initiatives would be prone to politicization around equity/justice issues. In general, people are not comfortable with the idea of potable water recycling. People interviewed expressed that potable reuse was something they could consider with more information, understanding, and satisfactory quality assurance. By contrast, in a mixed focus group setting, a small and diverse group gravitated towards concerns that potable reuse shifted the burdens of inequitable and unjust water allocation patterns (residual from apartheid) to those who least benefited from the current system. Most people expressed a willingness to reject potable water reuse on the grounds that other interventions were possible that had better equity implications. This is echoed in the broader acceptability literature, which suggests that people feel that water reuse initiatives should start with big users and industry before households. Consensus converged around potable reuse as a last resort, indicating that potable reuse was “thinkable”, but not to maintain existing patterns of allocation and use.