Green Drop Reports 2009-2025: South African Municipal Wastewater Management Performance

This collection of reports brings together the Green Drop Certification reports published by the Department of Water Affairs, later the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS), between 2009 and 2026. Green Drop Certification was introduced on 11 September 2008 as an incentive-based regulation programme for municipal wastewater quality management, and was paired with risk-based regulation using the Cumulative Risk Rating (CRR) of each wastewater treatment works, calculated from design capacity, capacity exceedance, effluent quality failures and technical skills. Full Green Drop audits assessed process control, monitoring, sample credibility, data submission, effluent quality compliance, failure response, bylaws, treatment capacity and asset management, while Progress Assessment Tool (PAT) reports in intervening years tracked CRR trends. Results were reported per wastewater system as report cards, with provincial and national summaries. The 2009 assessments covered 98 municipalities and 444 systems (average Green Drop score 37%); the 2010/11 cycle covered 156 municipalities and 821 systems (average 45%, 40 Green Drop awards); the 2014 PAT assessed 824 municipal plants for the period 1 July 2012 to 30 June 2013 and reported an average CRR deviation of 71.7%. The 2022 report presented the full audit of 995 wastewater treatment works (municipal, Department of Public Works and private) for 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021, and the 2023 Green Drop Progress Assessment report covered 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022. The 2025 Green Drop National Report, released on 31 March 2026, presented the full audit of 848 municipal wastewater systems in 144 Water Services Authorities for the 2023/24 municipal financial year; 14 systems achieved Green Drop certification and the proportion of systems in a critical state increased from 39% in the 2022 report to 47%. The collection comprised the full 2009, 2022, 2023 and 2025 reports and the introductory and national overview chapters of the 2011 report and the 2014 Progress Report. Data were provided as published PDF reports; system-level tables were not extracted into machine-readable form.