In March 2012, Water. Desalination + reuse (Faversham House) presented, in a feature from its February/March 2012 magazine issue, the Gippsland Water Factory, located in Victoria, Australia. The scheme was designed to treat municipal wastewater together with effluent from pulp and paper production and to give industry a dependable supply in place of high-grade raw water from Gippsland Water. According to the feature, it was the first plant of this type in Australia and combined reverse osmosis with a membrane bioreactor and an activated sludge stage that removed nutrients biologically.
The feature showed that the trade press in 2012 saw multi-stage treatment trains ending in reverse osmosis as a route to industrial water from wastewater, replacing high-grade raw water.