UCT has water quality standards and guidelines for water discharges (to uphold water quality in order to protect ecosystems, wildlife, and human health and welfare), as published in UCT’s Sustainable Water Management strategy.

The University of Cape Town has established a process in place to treat wastewater through the construction of its Green Precinct and Water Treatment Facility, located on lower campus. This initiative forms part of UCT’s long-term water resilience programme and aims to treat wastewater from surrounding residences and academic buildings for reuse in non-potable applications such as toilet flushing, irrigation, and sports field maintenance.

The facility represents a significant advancement in UCT’s sustainable water management strategy, incorporating on-site wastewater recycling as a core function. Scheduled for completion in December 2025, the project directly contributes to SDG 6.3 by reducing untreated wastewater discharge and promoting efficient resource recovery.

The centrepiece of UCT’s strategy is the Green Precinct and its cutting-edge on-site water recycling facility. This plant will treat wastewater from nearby residences and academic buildings, making it safe for uses such as toilet flushing, irrigation and maintaining sports fields – saving thousands of litres of potable water annually.

A unique aspect of the Green Precinct is its dual role as both operational infrastructure and learning environment. In partnership with UCT’s Future Water Institute, the site will serve as a living laboratory for water management research, teaching and innovation. Plans include an interpretative centre and landscaped gardens where students and researchers can engage directly with ecological systems and sustainability technologies.

Preventing water system pollution

UCT actively works to prevent polluted water from entering the water system, including pollution caused by accidents or incidents at the university. UCT has a policy framework (sustainability strategy, water management plan) and operational procedures (OHSE hazard/chemical risk requirements, stormwater works, planned wastewater recycling) that together form a risk-management cascade: identify hazardous materials, require containment and MSDS, manage stormwater with SuDS/catchpit works, and treat/reuse wastewater on campus. UCT uses engineering (infrastructure), procedural (risk assessment, training) and programme (waste reduction and reuse) approaches to reduce the probability and impact of hazardous spills reaching local waterways.

  1. The Pathways to water resilient South African cities (PaWS) programme (2019 - 2025) (PAWS) programme, led by UCT’s Future Water, shows practical, repeatable processes that reduce pollution in urban runoff before it reaches receiving waters or aquifers:
    (https://ign.ku.dk/english/paws/)
    • Nature-based treatment trains to cut pollutant loads. The project applies Water-Sensitive Urban Design/SuDS (e.g., swales, biofiltration cells, constructed wetlands) specifically to reduce pollutant loads in storm-runoff.
    • On-ground retrofits and devices. At the Mitchells Plain stormwater pond, the team installed litter traps, sandbag walls, created infiltration areas for MAR, and monitored performance - reporting improved stormwater quality.
    • Operationalisation & scaling tools. PAWS produced a GIS-based screening tool for site selection and a toolkit for transforming mono-functional ponds into blue-green infrastructure nodes - explicitly targeting water quality improvements.
    • Governance and maintenance processes. The project co-produces landscape management/maintenance plans with residents and the city, and runs a Community of Practice to institutionalise water-sensitive practices.
  2. Marine pollution detection & monitoring technology (SMARTPOL consortium → industry partners)
    UCT electrical-engineering researchers have been working in a multi-partner consortium to develop autonomous sensor networks, unmanned vessels and remote-sensing methods to detect and trace marine pollution (oil, debris) — technology explicitly designed to help authorities and industry identify pollution sources and enable rapid, targeted response that reduces ecological harm. The SMARTPOL project includes industrial partners (e.g., Sirena Marine Yachts, AquaBioTech Group) alongside academic partners and has piloted sensor/USV & satellite-data approaches for harbours and coastal waters. This project connects UCT engineering research directly with marine-industry actors to deliver practical pollution-monitoring tools.

  3. Prevention of pollution caused by accidents or incidents at the university
    Hazardous-materials controls and emergency preparedness — UCT runs OHSE training and emergency-preparedness modules (including online training rolled out in 2023), requires risk assessments for hazardous substances, and maintains waste-management and health-care risk waste procedures that align with national hazardous-waste and HCS regulations. These systems require units to keep MSDS, use appropriate containment, and follow specified disposal routes — all of which reduce the chance of spills entering storm drains and rivers.

    UCT’s Standard Operating Procedure on Waste Disposal Management details the steps to be taken to maintain safety in regards to hazards, both liquid and solid, and to dispose of/ recycle these in accordance with safety guidelines.

    UCT’s Standard Operating Procedures for Chemical Spills include containment, clean-up, decontamination of the hazardous chemicals, in addition to first aid and reporting protocols. Spill kits are provided to prevent spills from polluting other areas or waterways.

    UCT’s Mercury Spill Clean-Up protocol likewise includes containment, decontamination, and hazardous waste disposal steps which confine the mercury spill to controlled and safe conditions.

  4. Waste-to-resource and source-control projects — practical projects such as the 2024 sustainability pilot that converts organic campus waste into biogas/energy and recovers water show UCT actively reducing on-site waste streams and contamination risks (less organic waste, fewer uncontrolled disposals). Source-control reduces pollutant loads that could otherwise mobilise into waterways during heavy rainfall or accidental releases.