Circular Economy Water Cities
With rapid urbanisation, the proportion of the global population living in urban areas projected to increase from 54% in 2015 to 66% by 2050. Following a business-as-usual path, annual resource requirements of urban areas are estimated to increase from 40 billion tonnes in 2010 to nearly 90 billion tonnes by mid-century. At the same time, the global urban population facing water scarcity is projected to increase from 933 million in 2016 to over 2 billion people in 2050.
Role of Cities in Developing a Circular Economy
The circular economy, in contrast to the linear “take-make-consume-dispose” economy, aims to decouple economic growth from resource use and associated environmental impacts. Cities have an essential role in developing the circular economy with some of the critical aspects cities need to consider in encouraging the development of a circular economy, including:
- Encouraging better product design: Better design can make products more durable or easier to repair, upgrade, or remanufacture. It can help recyclers disassemble products to recover valuable materials or components, which overall reduces resource use
- Facilitating better consumption choices: The choices consumers make can support or hamper the development of the circular economy. These choices are shaped by the information consumers have access to, the range and prices of existing products, and the availability of economic instruments to ensure that product prices better reflect environmental costs
- Improving waste management: Waste management plays a central role in the circular economy. The way that waste is collected and managed determines whether there are high levels of recycling or not and whether valuable materials find their way back into the economy or to an inefficient system where most recyclable waste ends up in landfills or is incinerated, with potentially harmful environmental costs and significant economic losses
- Creating a market for waste to resources: In the circular economy, materials can be recycled back into the economy as new raw materials, thereby increasing the security of supply. Secondary raw materials can be used just like primary raw materials from traditional extractive resources
San Francisco’s Onsite Water Reuse Grant Program
The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s Onsite Water Reuse Grant Program provides grant funding to encourage commercial water users to collect, treat, and reuse alternative water sources including rainwater, stormwater, gray water, foundation drainage, air conditioning condensate, and blackwater for non-potable uses, such as toilet flushing, irrigation, and cooling tower makeup. Grant funding is available for three types of projects:
- Projects that are installing onsite water systems voluntarily (voluntary projects)
- Projects that are installing onsite water systems on a mandatory basis in compliance with the Nonpotable Water Ordinance that go above and beyond baseline compliance (above and beyond projects)
- Projects that are installing onsite treatment and reuse of brewery process water
The Take-Out
Cities can develop the circular economy by incentivising commercial buildings to reuse alternative water sources for non-potable uses.
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