“Green” issues make headlines these days, but many seem unaware that without the “blue” there could be no green, no life on Earth and therefore none of the other things that humans value. Water – the blue – is the key to life. With it, anything is possible; without it, life does not exist.
Sylvia Earle: American marine biologist, oceanographer, author, and lecturer. The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean’s Are One (2009)
One of Waterfront Charters greatest advantages is the fact that we are based in one of the most progressive institutions in the country, if not the modern world. This is in effect a bit of a conundrum, as the V&A Waterfront rests on an area that is steeped in history, dating back to the mid-17th century as far as trade is concerned, and eons earlier to a time of occupation by the first humans to walk the peninsula. Growing from a single jetty to a thriving harbour for the tall ships of the 18th and 19th centuries, the involvement of the British government of the time saw the development of the Victoria and Alfred harbour basins and the extension of the jetty into a sea-calming stone pier to facilitate the sailing ships entry into safe waters.
With the arrival of steam power, Cape Town Harbour itself grew out of reclaimed land alongside the extant basins; the V&A Waterfront switched allegiances to the fishing industry, and was packed with double-parked fishing vessels and their factory ships. But nobody of that – or previous – eras could have conceivably foreseen what the late 20th and early 21st centuries would make of the harbour. Imagination combined with a let’s-make-it-work-attitude has seen the transformation of the V&A Waterfront into an incredible combination of history, modernity, leisure, state of the art office buildings and a thriving ocean-orientated tourism industry.
The dream has become reality, and the V&A waterfront is now a local and international tourist attraction, and sees thousands of visitors on a daily basis, year round. And this is where we at Waterfront Charters doff our sailor’s hats to the management of the V&A. We stated above that it was a progressive institution, and that assertation begs some backup information. A recent engineering newsletter* sets out some of the salient facts, and it makes incredible reading. The V&A set out on a ‘green’ path in 2008, not only because it was a populist move, but because it made absolute sense in terms of the aims of the institution and its tenants and stakeholders.
Since then, the V&A – despite expansion – has reduced its energy use by 40% through photovoltaic solar panels. These marvels generate 640 000 kWh of clean energy a year, and the italics there are specifically aimed at focussing attention on the fact that it’s sunlight – the beautiful warming photons the guests on our boats thrive on – that creates this power. No messy carbon residue, no plundering of earth’s resources. But it goes much further than this: the V&A has found ways of diverting waste – one of any tourist attraction’s biggest headaches – through recycling (2,100t per year) and organic composting (2,300t per year). This is a full 62% of the waste produced each year diverted from landfills, and there is a constant endeavour to get that percentage up higher.
Another form of waste, the human-produced variety, doesn’t just get pumped into sewage pipes (and – horror of horrors – possibly out to sea), it is treated in a blackwater treatment plant and is reused in flushing systems (becoming, we guess, a form of aquatic perpetual motion, heading around and around.) Some of the water is also diverted to what is called an Organica Blue House which “…provides a fully enclosed and odourless environment, combining conventional wastewater treatment technology with a botanic ecosystem. Organica uses plant roots to grow into the effluent, encouraging bacteria and living organisms to develop.” These processes have helped the V&A reduce its carbon emissions by 47% since 2008, and the team are constantly researching ways to bring the emissions even lower. To extract a quote from the V&A Sustainability Senior Manager Petro Myburgh in the above referred newsletter: “We are always open to invest in technology; to work with business and universities to find better and smarter ways of doing things.” Two examples are elimination of single-use plastics, and on a larger scale, the precinct intends to establish a waste-to-energy pyrolysis plant to divert more waste from landfills and produce synthetic gas for electricity, complementing solar power.
Here we digress for a bit. Did you know that the world ocean contains 1,370,000,000km3 of water? It’s not a number that lends itself to human imagination, so let’s just say that it’s a lot. That saline resource is also over 97.5% of the earth’s water, leaving around 2.5% as fresh water: two thirds of which is locked up in icecaps and glaciers. This leaves less than 1% of the planet’s water to sustain all life. But what we (and the oil-rich desert kingdoms) have at our doorsteps and pierheads is a virtually unlimited source of water (“Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink…”), requiring energy – a lot – to convert it into potable H20. That’s where the waste-to-water pyrolysis plant stands proud: the V&A will be using it to power a desalination plant that will produce around 3.3 megalitres of fresh water; a system set scheduled to come into production in September this year, further enhanced by photovoltaic power. No oil involved!
Finally, add to these ‘green’ V&A elements the seawater cooling plant that cools the air in the HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning system), saving another 40% of energy compared to standard cooling tower systems. Another plant is scheduled to be constructed next year to enhance the energy saving over a wider area.
So: there you have it! Waterfront Charters support all endeavours that help to keep our beautiful environment healthy and safe from pollution and pillaging. There is nowhere else other than the V&A Waterfront that we would like to operate from, and having been here virtually from day one, we are very happy to be part of this dynamic, thoughtful and caring institution.
Join us for one of our exciting cruises: check the V&A out from a nautical perspective as you depart the historical docks.
(With grateful acknowledgement to an article by Irma Venter, Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor, for extremely helpful statistics and info on the above topic in their June Newsletter.)
