ISO set to widen water reuse brief

A proposal to widen current International Standardization Organisation (ISO) work on water reuse for irrigation to include other forms of water reuse was put forward at the beginning of March by three member states, China, Israel and Japan.

In resolution 19/2013 from the Technical Management Board, its Implementation Task Force on Water recommends that:

· ISO/PC 253 Treated wastewater reuse for irrigation be transformed into a technical committee entitled “Water reuse” with an enlarged scope to include other kinds of reuse of treated wastewater,
· This new technical committee could have several subcommittees dealing with specific kinds of reuse of treated wastewater, which could include the proposal from the Standardization Administration of China, TS/P 232 on Treated wastewater reuse in urban areas, and noting the Japanese Industrial Standards Committee proposal, Risk and performance evaluation of water reuse systems.

This new technical committee would also be responsible for the ISO 16075 series currently under development and the contents of TS/P 232.

The board’s proposal notes: “There are a lot of ISO deliverables applicable to water reuse, including the ISO 9000, ISO 14000 and ISO 31000 series. But water reuse, to which most people have not been accustomed, involves many specific aspects to consider. The international standardisation of water reuse is needed to facilitate the application of existing ISO deliverables as appropriate to the field of water reuse.”

The American National Standards Institute has asked its members for comments on the proposals by 19 April 2013.