For example, rain harvesting is gaining momentum as the most appropriate
technology in ensuring water supply in
water scarce areas. Communities, including pastoral tribes in the continent are
gaining from rain harvesting technologies
dominated by various types of tanks such
as ground level tanks, circular tanks, elevated tanks, potable and wastewater storage among others. All these tanks require
quality external and internal protection
of the substrate from attack and also to
ensure high drinking water quality.
The World Agroforestry Centre said
contrary to the perception that Africa
is a dry area “it actually has more wa-
ter resources per capita than Europe.”
Unfortunately, the center said “much of
Africa’s rain comes in bursts and is rap-
idly swept away or is never collected.”
UNEP also said technologies such as
rainwater harvesting provides an alterna-
tive to water shortages in Africa and that
if “Widely deployed, rainwater harvest-
ing can act as a buffer against drought
events for these people, while also sig-
nificantly supplementing supplies in cities
and areas connected to the water grid.”
Frequent droughts in Africa, inad-
equate or dilapidated water supply
networks because of low level public
investment has triggered the increasing
demand for alternative water withhold-
ing capacities.
Several companies with operations
in Africa are striving to boost their sales
and enhance their bottom lines by taking
advantage of this huge demand for water
storage and quality water tank coatings.
For example, Australia-based Heritage
Water Tanks, which has been exporting a
huge range of water tanks to Africa for
years, said the continent “is an emerging
continent and due to the remoteness of
various communities and environmental
differences experienced throughout the
landscape,” has potential for quality water storage tanks.
The company said with the avail-
ability of water and especially the avail-
ability of potable water being a major
problem in Africa, the region needs wa-
ter storage solutions that enable water
users to store the commodity “at an af-
fordable realistic price.”
Recently, the company said it has been
approached by several mining companies
in Africa to supply them with waste water
settlement tanks, fire fighting water tanks
and commercial size potable water stor-
age tanks. The supply order will ensure
Heritage Water Tanks sustains its wide
reach in the continent and also supports
the growing tank coatings market.
UK-based Balmoral Tanks is another
company that is already reaping from
Africa’s demand for water storage tanks
and modern tank coating technology.
The company recently completed a
2500 cubic meter Fusion Bonded Epoxy
Coated Steel Fire Water Storage Tank in
North Africa for a world renowned power and gas producer according to the a
statement on the company’s website.
The Fire Water Tank, which is 17.16m
diameter x 12.06m high, had its roof,
shell and floor supplied in Balmoral
Tanks’s premium Fusion Bonded Epoxy
Coating, which the company explains is
“a factory applied dry powder coating
process utilizing a DuPont brand epoxy.”
In East Africa, Roto Moulders Limited,
one of Kenya’s biggest plastic tank manufacturers said it is taking advantage of the
huge market for water storage facilities to
grow its sales and revenues.
“I saw opportunity in the plastics industry given that at that time there was
only one manufacturer of plastic tanks
in the region,” said Heril Bangera, in an
earlier interview with Kenya’s Business
Daily newspaper.
He said the company has grown
from making four tanks a day in 1989
to producing 500 tanks every in various
brands and sizes, a confirmation of the
growing East African market for water
storage technology.
The demand for elevated and ground-level water storage tanks is also on the
surge in West Africa where Accra-based
Polytanks Ghana has recently launched a
new range of tanks as the region transforms water tank storage as an integral
part of the water distribution systems.
Polytanks, a member of the Mohinani
Group, which is the leading manufac-
turer of plastic water storage tanks in
West Africa, has launched the Blow
Moulded Tank Technology (BMT) in
the plastic water storage manufacturing
sector, according to Ashok Mohinani,
executive director of the Mohinani
Group. He said the new type of tanks
can store up to 1,000, 2,000 and 3,000
liters of water and also comes in a wide
range of colors.
“Polytanks will continue to use pioneering technologies to constantly upgrade its product range which include
water storage and septic tanks; dustbins;
plastic pallets; poly kiosks and many
more,” he said during the recent launch
of BMT.
In South Africa, SBS Water Systems
said demand for storage solutions is increasing as municipal councils, mining,
commercial and fire protection sectors
seek reliable water supply sources.
Although initially the company was a
distributor of imported tanks, it recently
opened a new production line in South
Africa, “cutting lead times and expenses”
on imports.
According to Mava Gwagwa, SBS
Tanks’ new business and key accounts
manager, the company is “currently having projects in Zimbabwe, the DRC,
Sierra Leone, Malaysia and the U.S.,”
with mining companies and municipalities topping the list of clients.
“Municipalities have realized that we
supply a steel tank that is, in almost all
situations, better than the conventional
concrete tanks,” said Gwagwa.
“On the municipal side, this is abso-
lutely critical. If you consider how often
water is at the core of the service delivery
protests, a municipality can truly address
the issue of water provision easily and
economically with SBS Tanks.”
Although no statistics are immediately
available, the number of companies in the
business of water storage tank manufac-
turing and supply is huge and so is the list
of firms involved in production and sup-
ply of high performance waterborne and
high solids coatings systems to protect the
tanks from corrosion, the lead cause of
leakages and water supply interruptions.
The water-scarcity in Africa, and the
campaign to circumvent this challenge,
promises to support growth of the water storage tanks and the tank protective coatings. CW
