Capetonians urged to reduce water consumption

The City of Cape Town has appealed to residents to reduce its water usage, particularly outdoors.

Recent hot weather saw the municipality topping one billion litres per day, however water usage has recently decreased to 936 million litres a day. The City says as much as this is a decrease, it is still much higher than the 850 million litres per day target that the public is urged to stay below to help keep Western Cape dams and reservoirs fuller for longer.

PICTURE: Pixabay

Acting Mayco member for water and sanitation, Siseko Mbandezi, has called on the public to reduce their non-essential outdoor water usage by 50%.

‘’This can be done through various means, such as watering your garden before 09:00 and after 18:00 every day, and less often, and also ensuring your pool has a cover to reduce evaporation losses.’’

‘’Water usage is high, and dam levels are dropping. We are urging residents and businesses to help the City by doing the right thing to use less water this summer, particularly those who have gardens and pools, as the water used for these often results in extra high (peak) summer usage in the heat every year. Reducing this non-essential use helps keep our dams and reservoirs fuller for longer to benefit all of us in the long run. We had below-average rainfall last year, and this could happen again this year. Using less water will also help reduce the impact of ongoing load-shedding on our water supply system,’’ he added.

The City’s Water Inspectorate recently done inspections to check if the public is complying with the requirements of Water By-laws.

‘’We all use water every day - indoors and outdoors - so we all have the opportunity to save. Let's all be water wise, particularly outdoors, and comply with schedule 1 of the City's Water By-law. At this stage, a transgressor can be issued a spot fine each time they are caught in the act of transgressing the by-law, such as not watering at the correct times and the swimming pool not being covered,’’ said Acting Mayco member for water and sanitation, Siseko Mbandezi.

 

‘’Checking properties for compliance with the City's Water By-law is one of the ways the City aims to help reduce water wastage. Other ongoing efforts include programmes such as leak detection in the City's water supply pipeline network, annual pipe replacement, and pressure management. Cape Town, we are in this together. We have done this before so I am confident we can work together again – this time to cut non-essential outdoor water use in half to stay below the 850 million litres daily usage target. Thank you to our residents who are complying,’’ he added.

 

Done by: Mitchum George