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Trade effluent monitoring in South Africa — you're billed on load and judged on every spike.

If your factory sends effluent to the municipal sewer, you sit under a trade-effluent permit and the local bylaw, not just a DWS licence — and the two questions are money and risk. You're charged on volume and COD load, so an unmeasured bill is one you can't check. And a single pH excursion, COD shock or grease slug can breach the permit, choke the sewer, trigger penalties or even disconnection. addanode monitors your discharge continuously at the connection point — flow, pH, COD, conductivity, temperature and fats/oils/grease — so you prove compliance, verify what you're billed, and catch a shock load before it leaves site.

Talk to our Water Team What we monitor →
Know which rules you're under

Discharge to sewer is a different regime to discharge to a river.

Trade effluent → municipal sewer

Governed by the local authority's industrial-effluent bylaw and your trade-effluent permit. You're billed by the municipality on discharge volume and COD load, and held to limits on pH, COD, conductivity, temperature, fats/oils/grease, settleable solids and specific substances — to protect the sewer and the works downstream.

Effluent → environment / river

Governed by the National Water Act and your DWS water-use licence, with final-effluent limits set to protect the receiving water. That's the regime our water quality & DWS compliance page covers.

Many sites are under both — process effluent to sewer under a trade-effluent permit, plus stormwater or another stream to the environment under a DWS licence. The same addaNet platform handles both, so each discharge point is measured against the right set of limits.

Two regimes, and many factories are under both Sending effluent to a municipal sewer puts a site under the local industrial-effluent bylaw and a trade-effluent permit, with limits written to protect the sewer and the works behind it. Discharging to a water body is the National Water Act and a DWS licence, with limits written to protect the receiving water. A site with process effluent going one way and stormwater the other is under both at once. Discharge to the municipal sewer Discharge to the environment What governs it The local authority's industrial-effluent bylaw, and your trade-effluent permit The National Water Act, and your DWS water-use licence What the limits exist to protect The sewer itself, and the treatment works downstream The receiving water body Which limits you are held to pH, COD, conductivity, temperature, fats/oils/grease, settleable solids Final-effluent limits set for the water that receives it Where it has to be measured At the connection point where the effluent enters the sewer At the final discharge point What one excursion can do Breach the permit, choke the sewer, trigger penalties or disconnection Put the licence itself in question When a site is under both Process effluent to sewer, stormwater to the environment — a common pair Each discharge point measured against its own limit set
Two regimes, and many factories are under both Bylaw and permit on one side, National Water Act and DWS licence on the other. What governs it To the sewer The local authority's industrial-effluent bylaw, and your trade-effluent permit To the environment The National Water Act, and your DWS water-use licence What the limits exist to protect To the sewer The sewer itself, and the treatment works downstream To the environment The receiving water body Which limits you are held to To the sewer pH, COD, conductivity, temperature, fats/oils/grease, settleable solids To the environment Final-effluent limits set for the water that receives it Where it has to be measured To the sewer At the connection point where the effluent enters the sewer To the environment At the final discharge point What one excursion can do To the sewer Breach the permit, choke the sewer, trigger penalties or disconnection To the environment Put the licence itself in question When a site is under both To the sewer Process effluent to sewer, stormwater to the environment — a common pair To the environment Each discharge point measured against its own limit set
The two regimes described above, side by side. The sewer regime is the one with an invoice attached — you are charged on volume and COD load, so a discharge you have not measured is a bill you cannot check.
What we monitor

At the point your effluent enters the sewer.

pH

The fastest-moving and most-breached parameter — a dump of acid or caustic can be out of limit in seconds. Continuous pH with alerts catches it before it leaves site.

COD & organic load

Chemical oxygen demand drives both your bylaw limit and your bill. Continuous COD turns load into a number you manage, not a quarterly surprise. See water-quality sensors explained.

Flow & volume

Metered discharge volume — the other half of the bill, and a permit condition in its own right. Volume × load is what you're charged on.

Conductivity / TDS

Dissolved salts, often capped to protect the works' biological process and downstream reuse.

Temperature

Most bylaws limit discharge temperature; hot effluent from CIP, sterilising or process cooling is a common, easily-missed breach.

Fats, oils & grease

FOG and suspended-solids indicators for food, beverage and abattoir sites — a grease slug blocks sewers and breaches permits fast.

Where it pays back

Compliance, cost and process — three returns from one connection point.

Stay inside the permit

Continuous, time-stamped proof that pH, COD, temperature and the rest stayed within your trade-effluent permit — and alerts that let you act on a drift before it's a breach the municipality samples.

Verify the effluent bill

When you're charged on COD load and volume you didn't measure, you're trusting someone else's estimate. Your own metered load lets you check the charge — and, where pre-treatment is cutting load, prove the lower number.

Catch shock loads early

A burst of acid, a CIP dump or a grease slug becomes an instant alert, so you divert to a balancing tank or correct dosing before it leaves site, chokes the sewer or triggers a penalty.

Tune your pre-treatment

Before/after sensing across screens, balancing, neutralisation, DAF and grease traps shows whether pre-treatment is actually performing — so you size, dose and maintain it on data, not guesswork.

How we scope it

Measure against your permit — and your bill.

  • Start from the permit and the bylaw. The parameters, limits and charging formula in your trade-effluent permit define what we measure at the connection point and what we alert on.
  • Instrument the discharge. Online pH, COD, conductivity, temperature and flow at the final connection — integrated with any analysers you already run.
  • Alert before the limit. Thresholds set inside the bylaw limits, to WhatsApp or email, so a drift is an action and not an incident.
  • Log for compliance and billing. Continuous, time-stamped records become both your compliance evidence and your independent check on a COD-load-based charge.
  • Keep the record through outages. Edge buffering means load shedding never leaves a gap in your discharge record — on the addaNet platform, alongside your water, energy and production data.

Bylaws, charging formulae and permit limits differ by municipality and change over time. Treat references here as orientation and confirm current requirements against your own trade-effluent permit, the applicable local bylaw and your advisers.

Frequently asked

Trade effluent questions.

Most trade-effluent projects start with a penalty letter, a bill that looks too high, or a sewer the municipality says you're choking. Here's how we approach them.

A trade-effluent permit governs discharge into the municipal sewer under the local authority's bylaw — you're billed on volume and COD load and held to limits that protect the sewer and works. A DWS water-use licence governs discharge to the environment (a river or land) under the National Water Act. Many sites have both; we measure each discharge point against the right regime.
Yes. Trade-effluent charges are typically calculated from discharge volume and COD load. If you don't measure those yourself, you can only accept the municipality's figure. Your own continuous flow and COD give you an independent basis to verify the charge — and where pre-treatment is reducing your load, to substantiate a lower one.
pH (acid/caustic dumps), COD (organic shock loads), temperature (hot CIP and process water) and fats/oils/grease are the usual culprits — they move fast and breach quietly between the municipality's own samples. Continuous monitoring with alerts is aimed squarely at these.
Proof that it's working, and warning when it isn't. Before/after sensing across neutralisation, balancing, DAF and grease traps shows real performance, flags a failing unit before it causes a breach, and helps you dose and maintain on data rather than running blind between lab samples.
Yes. Edge devices buffer readings locally and sync when power and connectivity return, so your discharge record stays continuous through outages — important both for compliance evidence and for catching a shock load that happens during an outage.
No. We integrate with the instruments you already have wherever possible and add sensing only where there's a gap — the same read-what-you-own approach we take across the platform.
Related reading

Go deeper on effluent.

Insight

Trade effluent & municipal bylaws

Permits, COD-load billing and what to measure.
7 min read

Effluent monitoring & DWS compliance

The discharge-to-environment regime.
Case study

Trade-effluent compliance & billing

Stay in permit, and verify a COD-load bill.

Prove your discharge — and check your bill.

Send us your trade-effluent permit conditions and a recent effluent invoice. We'll scope the connection-point monitoring to match your limits, set the alerts that keep you compliant, and give you the data to verify what you're charged.

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