By Rianté Naidoo

A trip to the Northern Wastewater Treatment Works in Johannesburg took centre stage at Knight Piésold’s job shadowing day on Tuesday.  

The initiative, which was started by Consulting Engineers South Africa (CESA), sees consulting engineering firms partner up with schools to promote mathematics and science skills to pupils between grades 9 to 12.

“This initiative is used to foster young minds and encourage them to pursue engineering after school,” Sharlenee Moodley, marketing manager at Knight Piésold told infrastructurene.ws.

A bus load of 30 pupils from the MH Joosub high school in Lenasia arrived at the wastewater plant. The group was met by the company’s onsite engineer Shiraaz Jassat who gave them a hands on tour. He explained the intricacies of daily work as a civil engineer in the wastewater division, as well as the operations of a wastewater treatment plant.

He said the plant, which is operated by Johannesburg Water, receives 450 million litres of raw sewage a day. This sewage goes through several treatment processes and is pumped out the very same day.

The plant currently has three units which each consist of modules. A module houses all the various equipment which carry out treatment processes that treat raw sewage and convert it into clean water.

Jassat who works at the plant’s unit 5 said it currently has one module and added that several upgrades are in the pipeline for the unit.

“A new model is being designed to increase capacity treatment at the head of works,” Jassat said. The head of works, being one of the preliminary treatment processes, is an entirely biological process where water flows through channels, removing 80% of the solids in the wastewater.

“The upgrade of this new module should increase capacity by 50 million litres,” Jassat added. Other upgrades include the addition of a new storage dam at unit 5 and another module. Jassat said construction for these projects should start by mid 2018.