Water reuse at the building level could help cities close the infrastructure gap (Smart Cities Dive)

San Francisco’s water reuse ordinance offers a model for cities looking to stretch supplies, lower infrastructure costs and take advantage of public-private partnerships.

Smart Cities Dive looks at how San Francisco became the model for onsite water recycling, starting with its first-of-its-kind ordinance in 2012. In 2021, the city expanded that ordinance to require onsite reuse in all new commercial buildings over 100,000 square feet. Today, 70 buildings across the city recycle their own water.

One of them is Salesforce Tower, where Epic Cleantec oversees operations that helps the building meet 76% of its water needs.

Other cities are following. Austin just added $4 million to its Go Purple program and now has 36 onsite reuse projects. A national commission of utilities and health agencies from 16 states is working toward consistent rules so this can scale everywhere.

Our CEO and Co-founder, Aaron Tartakovsky, shared why onsite reuse matters: it brings the private sector in to share the load, so cities can hit ambitious recycling goals without building new pipe networks under every street. Not a silver bullet, he notes, but “a critical tactic in the collective playbook.”

>> Read more