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Zandvliet Water Treatment Works

Delivering clean water, urban growth, and award-winning engineering excellence for Cape Town.

Client

City of Cape Town

Project date

March 2014 - December 2024

The Zandvliet Wastewater Treatment Works (WWTW) is one of Cape Town’s most critical treatment facilities, serving communities from Kuils River and Delft to Khayelitsha. Over time, vandalism, theft, corrosion, and overloading pushed its infrastructure to the brink of collapse. With rising demand in one of the city’s fastest-growing catchments, urgent intervention was needed to safeguard water quality and enable future development.

The opportunity

The City of Cape Town faced the challenge of rehabilitating a failing plant while at the same time expanding its capacity to meet rapid urban growth. The overloaded systems were threatening the Eerste and Kuils rivers, limiting investment opportunities, and constraining development. A long-term, sustainable solution was required to restore reliability, introduce modern purification technology, and unlock growth for surrounding communities. In 2014, Zutari was appointed to design and manage the R1.7 billion extension and refurbishment of Zandvliet WWTW.
Zandvliet-2

What we did

The project included the Black-Mac screening station, Macassar pump station, and associated pipelines. The capacity of the plant was expanded with the construction of a new 18 Ml/d membrane bioreactor (MBR) plant, primary settling tanks, sludge dewatering facilities, and an upgraded SCADA system. The existing two 27 Ml/d activated sludge plants were fully refurbished.

To support collaboration across numerous stakeholders, Zutari’s Unsigned Studio developed advanced 3D models and virtual reality (VR) simulations. These tools enabled operators, contractors, and the client to experience the plant design in real-time, refine approaches, and ensure the facility was optimised before construction.

Construction began in December 2018, with meticulous planning, backup scenarios, and digital engineering tools used to overcome the technical, social, and environmental challenges of upgrading a live plant.
Zutari’s VR model helped clients, operators, and contractors visualise the new plant and optimise design decisions.

The outcome

The upgraded plant will increase treatment capacity from 72 Ml/d to 90 Ml/d, improving effluent quality and enabling future recycling. It supports urban growth and investment in one of Cape Town’s most dynamic regions. The project won the Mega Projects category at the 2024 CESA Aon Engineering Excellence Awards, recognising its scale and impact.

The Zandvliet WWTW upgrade is a model for sustainable urban infrastructure. Through technical excellence, digital innovation, and stakeholder collaboration, Zutari helped the City of Cape Town secure a cleaner, more resilient future for its communities.
Zandvliet-big

“The highly technical nature of the project and the sheer number of stakeholders involved meant this was the perfect opportunity for visualisation of the designs to form the basis of design and construction decisions. We look forward to helping the city unlock development in the region thanks to a reliable supply of clean water.”

Mpho Ramphao

Managing Director: Water

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