Garden of Unearthly Delights first festival to use thousands of litres of recycled water 

With the support of Green Adelaide’s Water Sustainability Grants, an assessment of water use at this year’s Garden of Unearthly Delights has shown that an impressive 455 kilolitres of recycled water was used at the event – saving drinking water from being flushed down the drain.

This marks the first time recycled water infrastructure has been used at a major public event with Council installing ten new recycled water access points throughout Rundle Park / Kadlitpina.

The new infrastructure enabled the connection of public amenities, irrigation systems and hoses to recycled water for activities such as flushing toilets, watering lawns and reducing dust across the site.

Completed ahead of this year’s Adelaide Fringe season - which showcased more than 800 events across 285 venues from 19th February to 21st March - a $1 million infrastructure investment within Rundle Park included supplying the Garden of Unearthly Delights with recycled water, with more than 47% of its water use now coming from a sustainable resource. In any other year, these 455,000 litres would have come from drinking water supplies.

South Australian Minister for Environment and Water, David Speirs advised “Green Adelaide’s Water Sustainability Grants are focused on helping councils increase and improve the city’s green spaces and the creation of a cooler, biodiverse urban environment that’s more resilient to climate change.

“South Australians can all play their part in tackling the changing climate, but it is up to governments to lead the way and it’s great to see the City of Adelaide delivering a project that will have long-term environmental benefits.”

Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor said that the initiative is the latest of many examples of the City of Adelaide showing strong environmental leadership and noted “That new infrastructure allowed us to reduce both water costs and wastage and I thank Minister Speirs and Green Adelaide for getting behind this project.

“I’m proud to say we were the first Council to offer recycled water for public events, which is part of our goal to be a climate ready organisation and community.”

The latest innovation follows the City of Adelaide working with SA Water to be the first Council to use recycled water to irrigate the Park Lands back in 2009. City of Adelaide is also the first Council to be approved by SA Health to allow access to recycled water for use in public spaces. Rundle Park is the first Park Lands “water smart” site with all water supply points being monitored in real-time. City of Adelaide are working in collaboration with SA Water to deploy technologies and share data. Rymill Park has also been successful in recently securing Planning & Development funding from the State Government, which will extend the recycled water for next events season.

Image courtesy adelaidefringe.com.au/