Individual Stories

MULCHING

Monica of the Zimele Educare Centre made sure she created good trenching and mulching when planting her garden. This way she’s able to ensure the soil acts as sponge to retain water for longer. As a result, even after a month of very little watering, the vegetables are growing perfectly well. This has saved a lot of water, not to mention her food.

TIP: Mulch and trench your garden to save a month’s worth of watering.

 

WINDBREAKS

Charles Mathlay of Military Heights built windbreaks around his garden to stop the wind from drying out the soil. He also put a cover on his crops that prevents evaporation. He now not only saves water, he saves time and effort by not having to walk the great distance to tap daily.

TIP: Build wind breaks and cover your garden to reduce water evaporation.

 

MEAT

JP has adopted a more grain-based vegetarian diet by cutting down on beef. This has helped him save water and money. Why? To produce 1kg of beef takes 10 times more water than producing 1 kg of grain.

TIP: Adopt a more gain based diet and save water.

 

ELECTRICITY

Ryan replaced five 100W incandescent light bulbs with five 6W LED light bulbs in his home, which saves 56,4 kWh of electricity per month and nearly 100 litres of water per month. When you save electricity you save water.

TIP: Use electricity saving light bulbs and save water

 

CLEANING PRODUCTS

Cheryse uses earth friendly products to wash her clothes, dishes, body and hair. By using these products she is keeping the water she uses clean so that it can be easily recycled.

TIP: Use earth friendly household and body cleaning products to keep water clean.

 

FRUIT & VEG PRODUCTS

Juliet buys her fruit and veg from Woolworths and she saves water and helps to keep it clean. She does this because she found out that Woolworths Farming for the Future program have systems with their suppliers which have saved 720.9 million m“ over the past 3 years, and because chemicals such as fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are only applied when required, which means less chemical run off is entering the fresh water system.

TIP: buy your food from a shop that focuses on preserving water.

 

RAINWATER HARVESTING

Larisa and her family of 3 harvest rainwater from the roof of her small house with gutters and closed water storage tanks. In doing so, they have enough water for drinking and cooking throughout the year in the drought-ridden Klein Karoo.

TIP: Recycle your rain water.

 

TOILET

Jori put a cool-drink bottle filled with stones into his toilet cistern. This displaces 1 litre of the water that fills the cistern after every flush, saving about 100 litres per day.

TIP: Put a 1L bottle or a brick in your toilet cisten and save 1 L of water each time you flush.

 

SOLAR PANEL

Mark of Observatory, Cape Town, installed Solar panels on his roof. These lowered his electricity costs and actually helped to save water. This is because 1kwh of energy = 1.35 l of water. So saving electricity actually means saving water.

TIP: Save water and electricity by installing solar panels.

 

SHOWER

Ishmael got his entire family to reduce the time they spent in the shower after he learnt that, if everyone in a family of four takes one minute less to shower, we save up to 12 000 litres of water a year.

TIP: Take shorter showers and save water.

 

AERATOR

Marc in Bo Kaap fitted an aerator to his tap at work for washing hands. Because the aerator mixes air with water, it’s reduced his water consumption by up to 50%.

TIP: Fit aerators to your taps and save water.

 

GARDEN

Bebe started to water her garden early in the morning at 8am. This helps to minimise water loss through evaporation since she learnt that watering the garden for 15 minutes uses around 50 litres of water.

TIP: Water your garden early in the morning and save water.