Water New Zealand Joins Global Call To Tackle Wastewater Emissions

Water New Zealand has joined with industry bodies around the world in a call for more action from governments to tackle methane emissions from wastewater processing.

Insight and Sustainability advisor Lesley Smith says there is huge potential to turn the wastewater sector from being a net emitter of greenhouse gases to a zero-carbon source of biogas.

“At the COP-26 summit in Glasgow, New Zealand signed up to a major climate change agreement to reduce global methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030 – a big step up from our existing goal of 10 percent by 2030.”

She says this will be a major challenge and we need to explore every opportunity to reduce methane, including from wastewater, a potent greenhouse gas.

“It has been estimated that there is ten times more energy contained in wastewater than the energy required to treat it.

“This means that there is a real opportunity to turn this sector from being a greenhouse gas emitter to one that contributes to zero-carbon energy. But we need a nationally led approach and more investment to develop mitigation technologies.”

See the global call to action.

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