• Prevent waste production and pollution of water resources wherever possible. "Prevention is better than cure"
  
  

• Minimise unavoidable waste production through:
  
  
  • Recycling/ Re-use of waste or water containing waste;
    
    
  • Detoxifying;
    
    
  • Neutralisation; and/ or
    
    
  • Treatment of waste streams; and/ or
    
    
  • Introduction of cleaner technologies and best management practices ("Housekeeping").
    
    
    

• In the instance of the discharge of water containing waste, the Waste Discharge Standards, as set by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (currently the General, Special and Special Standards for Phosphate), applies as the minimum requirement.
  
  
• In the instance of the disposal of waste, the Minimum Requirements for waste disposal, as set by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry, applies as the minimum requirement.
  
  (Such disposal of waste and/ or discharge of water containing waste will only be allowed if the receiving environment has the capacity to assimilate the additional waste load.)
  
  
  

If the minimum requirements, mentioned above, are insufficient to ensure the fitness for use of the receiving water environment, stricter standards will be enforced in accordance with the differentiated approach.

Relaxation from compliance with the minimum requirements, mentioned above, will only as a last resort be considered if the receiving environment has the capacity to assimilate the additional waste load. Relaxation would have to be justified on the basis of technology, economic and socio-political considerations.

The differentiated approach takes account of catchment specific conditions and includes the determination of Resource Quality Objectives (RQOs), Resource Water Quality Objectives (RWQOs) and the setting of standards that must ensure compliance to both RQOs and RWQOs. The levels at which the above in-stream objectives will be set, will be determined through the application of a Management Classification System for the particular water resource.