Water is a multifaceted topic. What exactly are your projects about?

Lenzen: We have agreed on four work packages: Drinking water including water losses and water quality, wastewater treatment, digitalisation and environmental education. For example, in spring 2022, we hosted colleagues from Buffalo City at our wastewater treatment plant for on-the-job training. Together with our team, they repaired and cleaned pumps in the metal workshop, discussed details of the wastewater treatment plant's electrical engineering and analysed samples in the wastewater laboratory. The collaboration and exchange with our colleagues from South Africa was a special experience, especially for our trainees.

In our second module, we focus on environmental education. In March 2023, school classes in Oldenburg, Wuppertal and Buffalo City completed the workshop "The city of the future is green and blue". To mark World Water Day on 22 March, all three school classes then shared their findings in a video conference. We are also currently developing a digital toolkit for internal training programmes with videos on 12 modules relating to wastewater management.

What are the most important changes you are initiating with your work?

Gounden: It's mainly small things. When employees from our municipal administration travel to Oldenburg, for many it is their first trip abroad. They then realise that we all - whether in South Africa or Germany - have our challenges when it comes to water supply and wastewater management, however different they may be. In every company, there is room for improvement in terms of management processes and the knowledge and skills of employees.

Lenzen: Yes, it really is often small changes that add up to make work easier and achieve a lot. When the technicians from South Africa visited one of our wastewater treatment plants for on-the-job training, they saw our employees cycling around the plant. It's much quicker than walking, more practical and more environmentally friendly than travelling by car.

Westphal: Direct cooperation in particular shows how important it is to not just stick to your own procedures and processes, but to look for simple and practicable solutions together. In Germany, we often think in a very complicated way.

Is the operation of a wastewater treatment plant in Buffalo City and Oldenburg at all comparable?

Gounden: In principle, the plants work in a similar way. In Oldenburg, they are usually equipped with more sophisticated technology. In Buffalo City, on the other hand, digitalisation is already quite advanced. In contrast to Oldenburg, we have already installed a large number of smart water meters, whereas our German partners generally only install them in the industrial sector. We also already monitor our entire water system with geo-information systems. Here we can compare our experiences with our partners from OOWV and the Wupper Association, because a partnership should not be a one-way street.

Lenzen: Wastewater treatment works very similarly everywhere - whether in Germany or the rest of the world. However, it was unusual at first to understand the system in South Africa, because unlike here, water supply and wastewater treatment are the direct responsibility of the local government.