Australia’s swimming pools unnecessarily waste trillions of litres of water each year

On on the eve of World Water Day 2020, Brisbane-based AIS Water has highlighted that trillions of litres of water are unnecessarily wasted each year by Australia’s swimming pools.

With global water conservation in the spotlight for tomorrow’s World Water Day 2020 (22nd March 2020) and amid concerns about resource sustainability in the wake of the Coronavirus outbreak, AIS Water is calling out commercial pool operators in Australia for wasting water as a result of what it sees as “archaic water disinfection practices including liquid and granular chlorine dosing”.

With Australia entering another year of potential drought, the Brisbane-based company is calling for an end to the trillions of litres of water being wasted by many municipal, school, university, hotel, resort and aquatic centre swimming pools.

With AIS Water’s systems proven to eliminate water wastage in swimming pools, company Chief Executive, Elena Gosse (pictured below) says “now, more than ever, we need to be considering the health of our planet in the face of this pandemic, and water is a precious resource for our country, especially when it comes to food production and maintaining public health.

“Pool water waste is taking a huge environmental and economic toll on our country and around the world and it would seem that no one is doing anything about it.

“While farmers are wringing their hands in despair and waiting for rain, and Australian households are growing familiar with limiting showers and parched gardens, many of Australia’s commercial swimming pool operators are literally dumping trillions of litres of water annually.

“In order to maintain safe disinfection and water chemistry levels, pools using conventional liquid or granular chlorine dosing must constantly dump or dilute the pool water. Then there’s the potentially lethal health and safety risks associated with handling and storing chlorine.

“It’s ridiculous on so many levels and has to stop.

AIS Water last year worked with Griffith University in Brisbane to quantify the amount of water wasted in pools.

The independent research found that one, 50-metre public swimming pool dosing with liquid or granular chlorine can waste 1.6 million litres of water per year through water dumping and drainage, at an average cost of $40,000 in water rates.

When using AIS Water’s inline technology, the need for water dumping is eliminated. In a city with 100, 50-metre pools, that’s an annual saving of 160 million litres of water and $4 million.

Gosse highlights that if this is multiplied by the number of pools around the country, then the water-saving benefits become even more compelling.

Commenting on the findings, Associate Professor Helen Stratton, a Microbiologist at Griffith University, stated “on an environmental note, saving that amount of water is a huge saving for our water-thirsty planet.”

Gosse, a board member of the Swimming Pool and Spa Association of Australia (SPASA), sees that the Queensland Government and councils in the state are leading the way nationally by replacing outdated and dangerous disinfection systems with AIS technology.

She adds “Education Queensland has our systems now successfully operating in over 90 school pools and Brisbane City Council has our systems operating in 16 of its 22 pools.

“Swimming is a big part of our Australian way of life and has many health benefits. We shouldn’t feel guilty about building or using swimming pools however up until now, the water conservation agenda seems to have ignored the waste being produced by swimming pools.

“Australia’s water crisis is directly linked with our recent summer of mega-fires and climate change, and as we now come to terms with a new global pandemic, it is irresponsible to continue to ignore the unnecessary waste of water resulting from archaic water disinfection practices.”

AIS Water is calling on all levels of government to undertake an urgent review of water disinfection technology in public pools and develop new national water disinfection standards for preserving water and the procurement of technology for new pools.

Click here to contact AIS Water via their entry in the Australasian Leisure Management Supplier Directory.