Cape Town's first desalination plant is online, but did it pass the taste test?

Cape Town's Strandfontein desalination plant is the first of three temporary facilities which is expected to augment the City's water supply over the next two years.

On Monday, Deputy Mayor Ian Neilson had an opportunity to taste of the first three megalitres (ML) being produced there.

"Everything is now working," he said, after a "blind tasting" of bottled water, desalinated water and tap water.

Neilson said operations at the plant, which went online last Tuesday, were "functioning fully".

These include the extraction of the water from the sea, treating it, getting it into the City's water system and getting the brine water back into the sea.