QUALITY FIRST APPROACH AT MELBOURNE’S EASTERN TREATMENT PLANT
7 April 2005
The Eastern Treatment Plant in Melbourne’s southeast is the largest plant in Australia to achieve HACCP certification for its recycled water and biosolids, Melbourne Water Managing Director Rob Skinner said today.
HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) is a quality control system originally developed by NASA to manage the quality of food for its astronauts. It has since been widely adopted by the food industry and its use is becoming widespread in the water industry.
Mr Skinner said Melbourne Water had taken a “quality first” approach by achieving the HACCP certification.
“We’ve been able to apply this quality assurance system, recognised across the world, to recycled water and biosolids at the plant, which will mean we can manage the quality at a number of points along the process rather than simply relying on testing the end product,” Mr Skinner said.
“Melbourne Water undertook risk assessments to identify the critical control points in the treatment process, and these critical points – five for water, one for biosolids – ensure a compliant product for current and future water recycling customers.”
Mr Skinner said a complete quality plan was produced and implemented, employees and contractors were trained and auditors from Lloyds Quality Assurance Register regularly visited to scrutinise the system, granting certification on 7 March 2005.
“Following on from the work in the water quality area, it’s a fantastic achievement and puts Melbourne Water in an outstanding position as far as quality control processes in the operations area in concerned,” Mr Skinner said.
The Eastern Treatment Plant provides an essential public health service, processing about 42% of Melbourne’s sewage, or about 370 million litres a day. This serves about 1.5 million people.
An increasing amount of treated effluent from the Eastern Treatment Plant is used for water recycling, and the remainder is discharged under EPA Victoria licence along a 56-kilometre pipeline to Boags Rocks on the Mornington Peninsula.