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RSPCA case studyRSPCA Sustainable Building

RSPCA (Victoria), Burwood East offers a range of animal welfare services, is the Victorian head office and the largest Victorian animal shelter facility.  RSPCA (Victoria) cares for in excess of 40,000 animals each year.

Environmental Sustainability Plan
With existing facilities in need of an upgrade a Master Plan of sustainably designed improvements to the Burwood East site was established.  A very generous bequest enabled the redevelopment to go ahead. The overall project has been phased over two stages and is expected to save up to 80% of the total water used at the site.

Stage 1. Indoor Dog Kennel Facility
The new kennels include state of the art energy efficient technologies and are designed to recycle water used inside them when attached to a sub-surface wetland facility to be constructed during the next phase.  Water efficient design features, which include correct water pressure, rainwater tanks and drought tolerant gardens have resulted in a 35% reduction of water use.

Stage 2. Proposed Wetlands Treatment Plant
The second phase of the project aims to reduce water use by an additional 45% through the harvesting, recycling and reuse of waste water from the wash down of the dog kennels. The means of waste water treatment include filtration, biofiltration, UV treatment and chlorination.RSPCA Water Consumption

Additionally, the RSPCA will be implementing:
• Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD), hard surface water collection and irrigation.
• Rainwater collection from our Animal Welfare Centre extension roof for toilet flushing.
• Low water consumption fixtures.
• Low rainfall appropriate planting.
• Participation in Support 155.
• Improve water conservation across all RSPCA sites.

For more information
Greg O’Brien…......Executive Manager Corporate Services
Telephone 03 9224 2524
Email gobrien@rspcavic.org.au