Cape Town's problematic vacuum sewer: A reflection on the technical, social and institutional blockages that constrain municipal management Taing, L., Armitage, N., Spiegel, A. (2011)
South Africa's first vacuum sewerage system was completed in Kosovo, an informal settlement (shantytown or slum) in Cape Town in February 2009. Although hailed by project consultants and municipal officals as the ideal technology for the Cape Flat's level topography, high groundwater table and sandy soils, the vacuum sewer has proved problematic, being continously blocked since inception by gross solids in its collection chambers. Residents currently use the system's collection as 40-litre conservancy tanks emptied three times a week. Kososvo's sanitation problem has become yet another example of how a technologically sound concept has failed disastrously in its implementation in a developing world context. The paper offers evidence of why the system was bound to fail as it was inherently a contextually inappropriate technology for Kosovo as implemented, and furthermore one that was poorly managed due to limited technical knowledge, institutional conflict and instability within the municipal structures of the City of Cape Town. It suggests that improving the functioning of the system requieres the municipality to directly address the technical, social and institutional constraints that are jointly responsible for its failure.
Bibliographic information
Taing, L., Armitage, N., Spiegel, A. (2011). Cape Town's problematic vacuum sewer: A reflection on the technical, social and institutional blockages that constrain municipal management 12th International Conference on Urban Drainage, Porto Alegro, Brazil
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Cape Town's problematic vacuum sewer: A reflection on the technical, social and institutional blaockages that constrain municipal management
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