Mr. Liam McCarton:

The next couple of slides will highlight some ideas that we would like to submit. We are used to a traditional approach to infrastructure, which is typically a single track approach, where all water is treated, pumped to the consumer and then wastewater is treated on-site or collectively, and then discharged. That is the conventional approach. Innovations and the discussion to date have focused on supplier-led issues, such as network leakage, treatment optimisation and so on. We would like to discuss a complementary approach rather than an alternative.

The current situation in respect of wastewater, particularly with the establishment of Uisce Éireann, is almost analogous to the waste management issue of ten or 15 years ago. If we were to look at water as a value chain, and apply the same concepts we have developed through waste management, we might possibly look at a zero waste approach. Rather than looking at the single track, we would look at a number of values along the way. For the benefit of the committee, I will use the "reduce, reuse, recycle, disposal" slogan. I will not call it plagiarism as we are only borrowing it and not claiming it. The first layer is obviously water efficiency and demand management, on which there has been much focus, and rightly so. If we were to look at it as a value chain, then issues arise such as reusing water on site and rainwater harvesting, which we will examine later in more detail. Further down the chain we find recycling before discharge through natural wastewater treatment systems, and finally we have disposal through sustainable urban drainage systems or water sustainable design. We are looking on it as a value chain and valuing each element of that chain, for both consumer and supplier. That is the context which we would like to tease out a bit.

From our studies and from other studies, an average person would use 150 litres per day. We flush about 30% of that down the toilet, which is about 50 litres a day.