Water, Sewage & Effluent January February 2019 | Page 36

The relationship between the Southern African
Plastic Pipe Manufacturers Association (SAPPMA)
and certification bodies such as the South African
Technical Auditing Service (SATAS) and the
Productivity Engineering Services and Consultants
(PESC) continues to grow from strength to strength.
Edited by Tarren Bolton
T
hese associations are increasingly
supportive of each other’s efforts
to ensure that only top-quality
plastic pipes and pipe fittings that meet
the international standards set by the
System Administration, Networking,
and Security (SANS) Institute bear the
SAPPMA logo of quality.
“The purpose of SAPPMA is to
create consumer confidence within the
plastic pipe industry and to promote the
production and the use of high-quality
plastic pipes and pipes systems that
meet the quality standards as stipulated
by SANS or ISO. It would therefore
be impossible for us to do our job
without the involvement and support of
organisations such as SATAS and PESC,
who play a vital role in the sampling
and testing of the products we send
to them,” explains Jan Venter, chief
executive officer of SAPPMA.
In an effort to clearly differentiate
SAPPMA members from non-members,
the plastic pipes body announced earlier
this year that it would be increasing the
intensity, and in some cases also the
frequency, of factory audits. During
these announced or unannounced
visits by a SAPPMA quality inspector,
pipe samples are taken and sent away
for independent testing. Tests include
checking for recycled content, the
internal pressure test, stress crack
resistance, resistance to rapid crack
propagation, and the melt flow index
(MFI). One of the prerequisites of being
a SAPPMA member is to allow these
SAPPMA: The road to certification
Figure 1: Organogram explaining the relationship between SAPPMA, SANS, SATAS, PESC, SAPPMA members, suppliers, and the public.
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Water Sewage & Effluent January/February 2019
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