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Why You Should Save Water? - Source : How to save water in South Africa - The Ultimate
Guide
Find the latest tips on how to save
water in South Africa with these water saving techniques you can use at home,
at your business, in the garden and everywhere else you go.
"To a
thirsty man, a drop of water is worth more than a sack of gold.”
1. Why You Should Save Water
Water is life. Not only do you need water to
survive but it is an essential resource in all matter. 71% of earth is covered
with water but only 1% of it is drinkable. As water is necessary
for all life and especially for human survival, the importance of this resource
is clear.
With climate change, the weather patterns in the
world have changed and South Africa’s catchment area has seen a severe scarcity
of water.
According to Africacheck, the
following statistics showcase the current water situation in South Africa.
1. Roughly
88 % of SA households have access to water.
2. There
is piped water in less than 50% of the homes.
3. South
Africa has less water per person than Botswana & Namibia.
4. South
Africa is the 39th ‘driest’ country in the world.
Everyone has a role to play to ensure that water is used in a sustainable manner.
General Quick Tips on How to Save Water
·
Monitor how much water you are consuming.
·
Find and fix leaks.
·
Use alternative water resources,
like collecting rain water or using grey water.
·
Use hand sanitiser. But
be warned – use it (and soap) properly or risk creating
antibacterial-resistance, just like not finishing your antibiotics script.
2. How to Save Water in Your Home
Starting at home, it’s important to realise how
much water you can actually save. For each area of your home you are able
to reduce a significant amount of water just by using effective techniques. To
make the water saving journey as simple as possible, find water saving
techniques for your home below.
Existing Bathrooms:
·
Take shorter showers. Turn the
shower on, wet yourself, turn it off. Soap yourself, rinse, and you’re
done. Showering once a day and filling up less water in your bath can save
a lot of water.
·
Use a basin in the shower. Collect all
the water you shower with and use this to flush your toilet, either via the
cistern or straight into the bowl.
·
Wash your hair less often. With
training and a few uncomfortable days your hair can adapt to being washed less
often.
·
Shave with a small container of water. There’s
no need to keep water running this way when shaving.
·
Reduce the amount of water you use when
flushing the toilet. Lift the toilet handle immediately when flushing and only
flush if needed. By doing this you reduce the amount of water running down the
drain.
·
Put a brick or bottle in the cistern of the
toilet. This allows the cistern to fill up with less water.
·
If you have a baby that cannot stand up in the shower, wash the
baby in a basin or use a baby dam.
·
Change your shower head to a water saving
alternative
·
Collect steam/moisture with a
dehumidifier. The water collected can be used as a source of greywater.
New Bathrooms:
·
Fit water saving shower heads. A single
temperature lever (instead of two taps) makes taking a shorter shower even
easier – consider this when installing a shower.
Some alternative shower head solutions you can
consider are:
·
Sustainable shower heads and
regulators
·
Fit water saving nozzles onto your taps
Some alternative water saving nozzles you can
consider in a new or existing bathroom are:
·
Install a water saving toilet
Some alternative water saving toilets you can
consider are:
·
EcoLoo
·
WaterLoo
Existing Kitchens:
·
Put basins in your sinks and don’t
leave water running when washing dishes. The basin can be used for
freshwater to rinse vegetables or dishes.
·
Boil water when washing dishes. Very
hot water cleans your dishes more efficiently, which means you won’t need as
much water or soap. It’s wise to leave the greasiest dishes for last.
·
Use one-pot recipes when cooking meals. Often,
using more than one pot is unnecessary when cooking.
·
Steam your vegetables instead of boiling them. By
doing this you are also cooking your vegetables in a healthier way.
·
Scrape and wipe your plates clean before
putting them in the dishwasher so you can use a shorter cycle.
·
Put a full load of washing into the washing
machine and dishwasher.
·
Use paper cups and plates. Remember,
plastic is extremely bad for the environment.
New Kitchens:
·
Fit water saving nozzles on
the kitchen sinks.
Some alternative water saving nozzles you can
consider in new and existing kitchens are:
·
Exchange your old dishwasher for a water
efficient alternative. Contrary to conventional wisdom,
washing dishes by hand uses far more water and energy than
using the dishwasher. When using the dishwasher households can save up to
1200 litres per year.
3. How to Save Water in Your Business
or Organisation
Water is needed for everything we produce and
consume, which directly affects businesses. With this in mind, the impact
organisations can make is huge, not only in Cape Town but in the entire world.
Businesses have an important role to play in the
water conservation journey and can influence individuals, communities and other
businesses to save water efficiently. We’ve noted the following water saving
techniques to help save water efficiently within your business.
Tops Ways to Save Water in Your
Business:
Existing Office Space:
·
Educate your staff on the importance of saving
water. Make sure they understand how to save water both at home and at
work. A good initiative is to start a water saving project within the
organisation.
·
Do regular water saving audits. This
will allow the organisation to monitor how much water is being used and which
areas of the organisation are using more water.
·
Use hand sanitizer in bathrooms.
·
Flush toilets only when necessary.
·
When cleaning office premises, don’t use water over excessively.
·
Use a pool cover if the organisation has a pool.
·
Use a product like LooMe or PooPourri to
keep smells down. Alternatively use shaving foam in the cistern so you don’t
need to flush so often.
·
Exchange the toilets for water efficient alternatives.
Quick Fact: Drink less
coffee! "About 18 900 litres of water is needed to produce 1 kg of roasted
coffee. For a standard cup of coffee, one needs about 7 g of roasted coffee, so
that a cup of coffee uses about 130 litres of water.” (Source: City of Cape Town Water
Conservation)
New Office Space:
·
Fit water saving taps or fit existing taps with
aerators.
Some alternative water saving nozzles you can
consider in new or existing office spaces are:
·
Install water saving toilets
Some alternative water saving toilets you can
consider are:
·
EcoLoo
·
WaterLoo
4. How to Save Water in Your Garden
Plants also need water to survive, but it’s
possible to reduce the amount of water used to keep them healthy. Saving water
in the garden is just as important as saving water at home or at your business.
70% of households with gardens use up to 46% of their water for gardening. That’s a lot.
We’ve noted several water saving techniques you can use to save water in
the garden below.
Existing Gardens:
·
Plant succulents and other water-wise plants. The
best plants will most probably be those that naturally occur in the area where
you live, as they will be adapted to the local quantity of rainfall and
shouldn’t need your extra assistance. Here’s a list of lovely
water wise plants.
·
Remove invasive and water hungry plant species. Check
that none of the plants in your garden are water hungry species such as
invasive alien Pine trees, Eucalyptus/Gums, Wattles and Australian Acacias and
Jacaranda trees.
Fact: 1,44 billion litres
of water is lost to invasive alien plants nationally, which
could essentially sustain 3.38 million households with four people living for
one year or 120,000 HA of cropland to increase food production (Source: World Wildlife Fund)
·
Spread wood chippings or mulch in your garden
beds. This technique will reduce evaporation from the soil and
prevent the growth of weeds. Plants that provide ground cover can also serve
this function.
·
Take out your lawn. Lawns are
water hungry and can be swapped for much nicer alternatives. Some
succulents do this job excellently and are even nice to walk on when fully
established.
·
Wash your car on your lawn.
·
Ask your local nursery for
indigenous and water wise ground covering plants. that can replace a lawn.
·
Indoor plants can benefit from living in your
bathroom, where there will be more moisture in the air. Some may need more
light than your bathroom offers so keep an eye on the plant’s health.
·
Cover your vegetable garden with a shade cloth. This
can deter pets while reducing evaporation.
·
Consult a local landscaper to
help you plant a waterwise garden.
To find out which plants grow naturally in your
area, check out SANBI’s search tool.
Click your rainfall region and the "drought tolerant” checkbox, as well as
other factors about your garden (the amount of sunlight for example). The
search tool will then generate a list of plants that would suit your garden.
New Gardens:
·
Invest in a greywater system.
·
Invest in a water tank and connect all your
gutters to it. If the tank fills up and you have a swimming pool, the overflow
water could go into that. Your water tank can serve as emergency drinking water
(when filtered) or be used in the toilet and garden.
·
Use a drip irrigation system, instead
of watering with a hose. This method slowly drips water and means that a lot
less water is lost to evaporation.
Existing Swimming Pools:
·
Turn off the automatic fill-up in your swimming
pool. Apart from saving water, a continually dropping water level
will also alert you to leaks in the system.
·
Make sure you have a swimming pool cover to
reduce the speed of evaporation of water. This will make a big difference to
your water consumption.
·
Convert your swimming pool to an underground
water tank. If you only swim a few times per summer, is the water
consumption really worth it? A gym membership may offer a warmer alternative if
it’s exercise you’re after.
·
Install a backwash tank. A backwash
tank holds your pool’s backwash water and releases it back into the pool,
instead of letting it go to waste.
5. How to Save Water with Your
Lifestyle Choices
Everything we use and eat has a water
footprint. It’s possible for us to save water just by adjusting our
lifestyle. According to the Water Footprint Network,
‘the water footprint is a measure of humanity’s appropriation of fresh water in
volumes of water consumed and/or polluted.’ For example, leaving a mouthful of
steak on your plate is equivalent to running your dishwasher 22 times. This is
due to the fact that water is needed to produce the crops, which are fed to the
cattle and the cattle then lands on your plate.
Water is needed for every aspect of the
journey. Below are a few ways you can save water by changing up certain lifestyle
choices.
·
Reduce your meat and dairy intake. Beef
has the greatest "water footprint” so cutting this out of your diet can
save your country water. Only 3% of an individual’s water footprint is
household use, whereas 73% comes from our diet and the food we eat.
"It takes three times more water
to produce milk than vegetables, ten times more water to produce eggs, fourteen
times more water to produce chicken meat, nineteen times more water to produce
pork, and forty eight times more water to produce beef than vegetables.”
– Dr. Arjen Hoekstra & others, The Water Footprint
Assessment Manual
WWF has calculated the amount of water
certain foods need to be produced in South Africa (Image Source: World
Wildlife Fund).
·
Be mindful
of the products you buy. When shopping for goods, reduce the
amount of plastic you buy. Instead use paper cups, paper plates and buy food
without the plastic wrapping where you can.
6. Water Scarcity in the World
Many places around the world are experiencing
drought and water scarcity. People are living with less water than they
need. According to the World Wildlife Fund, roughly 1,1
billion people still don’t have access to water. That’s a lot of
people. And despite the data, many people still don’t know how to use water
sustainably.
Water affects everything: education,
health, food and security. There are many examples of vulnerable cities facing
water crises, such as Beijing, Cairo, Sao Paulo, Mexico City,
Istanbul, Lahore and Bangalore.
Many of the water systems that keep ecosystems and
the world’s population alive are running dry or becoming polluted. An
important strategy around the world has become the re-use of wastewater.
With this strategy individuals are able to recover
water, nutrients, or energy. In turn countries are using wastewater for
irrigation – which represents 7% of irrigated land in developing countries.
We’re in a water crisis. The story is similar
everywhere and because of this, by 2025, two-thirds of
the world’s population may face water shortages. Due to the water shortages,
there are warnings of conflict and
mass migration, which some experts say is already happening in Syria.
In a nutshell here’s why water conservation
is key:
·
Fresh water is scarce around the world.
·
Humans need water to survive.
·
A large amount of water is used to irrigate farmland for food
production. The farming industry in South Africa are the leading direct users of water,
consuming roughly 66% of water in South Africa.
·
Water is essential for manufacturing (especially in heavy
industries which require a lot of water as a power source or for cooling).
·
Conserving water can save energy. To
pump water and to use the sewage system, energy is required. By saving water
you can reduce your carbon footprint and the water bill.
New technologies are emerging around us every
day and innovative minds are working together to come up with new water saving solutions.
With the severity of the water crisis it’s crucial to start thinking of
long-term solutions rather than short term gains.
One area which is experiencing a lot of interest
and innovation is desalination, known as turning
saltwater into drinking water. Added to that there are
also many nifty water saving devices which
are being sold on the market.
The power of innovation and technology can help
reduce the amount of water we use in our day to day life.
Water scarcity and drought however, has become a
frequent phenomenon in many regions of the earth and it’s crucial to continue
saving water. Safe and readily available water is necessary for the general
health of humans.
A good amount of rainfall won’t solve the problem,
since it takes between 500 and 1 300 years to fill an aquifer. We
need to all take action today.
Everyone needs to join the conservation train, even
if it only means implementing a few water saving techniques.
Every drop really does count.
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