World Water Day 2017 author series: Guy Hutton

This year’s UN World Water Day is dedicated to wastewater. This theme is very timely, given that the world has committed through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to treating and reusing more wastewater. However, we should stop seeing wastewater as a ‘waste’ and only a cost to deal with. It is in fact a vital resource, especially for water scarce countries and river basins. Many government authorities and industries already see the value in partially treating municipal wastewater to standards required for agricultural or industrial uses. In Singapore, municipal wastewater is even treated to the point of being used again for drinking water. Hence, as water resources come under more and more pressure from growing populations and growing per capita needs, it is important that countries not only align their policies in support of SDG target 6.3, but also invest resources to implement and monitor wastewater treatment and reuse programmes, and evaluate their benefit to populations and to the environment. Once governments and private sector realize the financial and economic returns to wastewater reuse are real, we can surely expect faster progress to achieving the global target.