WaterAid
WaterAid Australia is an international charity dedicated to helping people escape the stranglehold of poverty and disease caused by living without safe water and sanitation.
In addition to an annual membership, in 2006 Veolia Water supported the WaterAid Regatta.
Proceeds from the Regatta went directly to WaterAid Australia to deliver safe water, effective sanitisation and hygiene education for a specific project in Timor-Leste, Nepal or Mozambique.
United Water and Phoenix Society Join Forces
Phoenix Society is a non-profit organisation established in 1958 to employ, train and develop people with intellectual and/or physical disabilities. It has grown into a successful business services provider employing 550 South Australians, of whom 440 have physical and/or intellectual impairment.
United Water, a subsidiary of Veolia Water Australia, has entered into a contract with Phoenix Society that will see 8,500 water meter valve assemblies refurbished and bench tested in South Australia over the next 12 months. With over 650,000 water meters in South Australia it is expected that Phoenix Society employees will refurbish up to 1,000 units per month initially.
The partnership with United Water provides excellent skill and business development opportunities for the Phoenix Society and its workforce, while delivering significant environmental and economic benefits.
Refurbishing valves provides a better environmental outcome by minimizing the need to melt down old valve assemblies as has been done in the past. The project also presents an excellent opportunity to further develop the skills of the Society's employees in handling a complex set of tasks in a new business area.
New Zealand winning entry
Sketches around the World
Sketches around the World is an international Veolia Environnement project supported by the French National Commission for UNESCO, UNESCO's Education Department, through the Education Section for Sustainable Development and the Associated Schools Network and the UNEP.
It is the third edition of an international competition intended to raise children's awareness of environmental and health protection. (2004 - Scroll around the World). The project invites school children around the globe, aged 9-11 years, to draw a local initiative that represents their chosen example of a sustainability based project.
The winning school from Australia is the Baldivis Primary School, Baldivis, WA.
The winning school from New Zealand is the Pinehurst School in Albany.
For more information about the project visit http://www.veolia.com/globe/en
Undergraduate Water Prize
Since 2003 Veolia Water has been the national sponsor of the AWA Undergraduate Water Prize.
The aim of the prize is to:
The prize is open to all final year, university students who carry out a thesis or project related to water.
The winners of the 2006 Undergraduate Water Prize completed a group thesis. They are:
Sarah Jewell, Jarrah Muller, Andrew Telfer and Matthew Thompson
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Adelaide, SA
Project Title: Towards a Restoration Plan for a Wetland Affected by Saline Groundwater.
Other national finalists were:
Arron Lethorn
Department of Applied Chemistry, Curtin University of Technology, WA
Project Title: Effect of Calcium Ions on the formation of disinfection by-products in drinking water
Pettina Love
University of Canberra.
Project Title: The Decomposition of Fire Effected Eucalypts.