Company off water grid

One of South Africa’s biggest corporations has raised the bar – and municipal water levels – by installing its own mass water filtration system so it can go off the water grid.

Old Mutual unveiled its wastewater-to-drinking-water filtration system at its Mutual Park premises in Pinelands‚ Cape Town‚ on Monday.

It is already harvesting 650 cubic litres of clean water a day by purifying waste water‚ primarily from sewage.

Over a month‚ the plant will be saving the City of Cape Town up to 15‚000Kl of water.

Old Mutual’s chief operating officer, Iain Williamson, said it was not only a milestone event for the company but for the city too.

With about 9‚000 people operating on its campus each day‚ the company “recognised the need to reduce its dependency on the municipal water supply” last year.

It is the first large corporation in the country to go off the water grid and those at the helm are hoping to set an example for other corporates.

“We have set the benchmark – this is a model for future generations‚” Williamson said.

Although it was unveiled on Monday‚ a pilot phase had been operating for the past six weeks and the water had proven to be even of a superior quality to the municipal supply‚ Williamson said.

He said the company wanted to embed its principles of sustainability “into our day-today operations”. –