Assessment of the efficacy of the legislative framework for greywater management in three selected municipalities in South Africa.

Abstract

In 1994, the reality for many South Africans in urban informal settlements was displacement, marginalisation, inadequate shelter, accompanied by the lack of access to water supply services, adequate sanitation, greywater nuisances and exposure to waterborne disease outbreaks. The advent of democracy however, has seen the development of a national legislative framework, goals and strategies that will help to manage these spatial, water service inequalities and greywater nuisances in informal settlements. The Water Services Act of 1997 and the SANS 1732:201x are examples of national government interventions to manage greywater in South Africa. Correspondingly, water service institutions such as metropolitan and district municipalities are mandated to develop strategies and by-laws which resembles the national legislative interventions but suitable to local conditions. Despite the significant wastewater policy developments made by the South African government, municipalities still struggle to make corresponding greywater by-laws, implement the mandate of water service provision and to manage greywater nuisances in informal settlements. Greywater challenges are more pronounced in South Africa’s Metropolitan municipalities because of their inherently high informal settlement population density. Against this backdrop, this project aimed to review the existing greywater legislative framework of South Africa. In particular, the research objectives were firstly to conduct an empirical review of the efficacy of the legislative framework (the Water Services Act of 1997 and the SANS 1732:201x of 2019 framework) in assisting officials to govern the management of greywater in South Africa’s urban informal settlements and secondly to investigate if there is a policy basis in South Africa for non-treatment interventions of greywater by water service authorities in South Africa’s informal settlements. The last objective was to assess the state of cooperative governance between municipalities and national government institutions responsible for the management of greywater. This was a quantitative research design using a cross-sectional survey model. Questionnaires were administered electronically to a sample of 17 municipal leaders whose responsibilities were on water management. Descriptive statistics (including graphs, pie charts) were employed in analysis of the data. Outcomes were reviewed against the alignment or the lack thereof with the SANS 1732:201x standards. There were four findings in this study. Firstly, this study found that the challenges associated with greywater management in informal settlements are caused by water service delivery backlogs and thus institutional in nature. Secondly, the implementation of SANS 1732:201x standards is only possible if the sanitation service level of informal settlements is improved to waterborne sanitation. Thirdly, the Water Services Act of 1997 is ineffective to help manage greywater in informal settlements through reuse since the act does not clearly define and distinguish greywater from blackwater. Lastly, the study found that workers in metropolitan municipalities do not uphold the principle of access to information enshrined in section 32 of the South African Constitution which states that everyone has the right of access to any information that is held by the state. Moreover, this study recommends the development of laundry houses and incentive-based regulation to implement SANS 1732:201x standards by collecting, treating, and reusing greywater for toilet flushing in informal settlements.