South East Water

Every year millions of litres of drinking water go down the drain as Melburnians receive life-saving dialysis treatment.

Saving Water Saving Lives is a community partnership between South East Water and Southern Health to
capture the clean water discarded during the dialysis process.

The purification process discards a significant proportion of drinking water and sends it straight to the
sewer. Saving Water Saving Lives provides a solution to capture this water in a tank before it is lost and
deliver it back into the community. The City of Casey is using this water on its community green spaces,
gardens and ovals.

"We're working with organisations like Southern Health to find innovative and simple solutions to save water
in our everyday lives," South East Water Managing Director Shaun Cox said.

"For every minute that a dialysis machine is operating, between one to two litres of water goes to waste.

"We're very proud and excited about the Saving Water Saving Lives program, which will allow councils and
health providers to work together to benefit the community by saving and reusing precious water.

"The Cranbourne Unit is the first step in this program, but the potential is far reaching. We will be exploring
opportunities with other hospitals and within the community."
Cranbourne Integrated Care Centre is the first pilot site for the Saving Water Saving Lives initiative. South
East Water is looking at opportunities to work with other dialysis units to save more water for the benefit of
the community.

Water-saving infrastructure has also been installed in the homes of 10 residential customers who receive
home-dialysis treatment. This provides customers with the opportunity to re-use the discarded dialysis
water in their gardens and to flush their toilets.

"The Saving Water Saving Lives initiative is expected to save up to 5 million litres of water this year," Mr
Cox said.

According to 2005 ANZDATA, the number of patients receiving dialysis treatment is set to double by the
year 2016, in turn doubling the amount of water currently going to sewer through dialysis - highlighting the
need to act now.

"With customers facing water restrictions and ongoing drought conditions, it is important for the whole
community to think creatively about how water can be saved and reused for its best purpose.

The water is currently classified as industrial reuse water and quality testing confirms that it is suitable for
purposes such as irrigation, laundry and flushing toilets. The water that is not used from the Reverse
Osmosis machine has been through two previous water filters resulting in high quality recycled water.
South East Water has installed a tank level transmitter device on the tank. This device allows the City of
Casey to measure the volume of water in the tank off site at any time to identify when the tank is full and
optimise water collection times. The transmitter is a data logging device coupled with a pressure sensor
and wireless modem, which transmits data automatically every 24 hours, or an update can be requested at
any time.