The people of Cape Town are experiencing the worst drought in over a Century and are bracing themselves for the dreaded day known as Day Zero.
The day around four months from now is when experts predict the City’s taps could run dry.
Authorities have implemented Level Six water restrictions as of the first of January, which limits every person to the use of no more than 87 litres of water per day and less than 10, 500 litres of water a month, per average household.
Cape Town hotels say they are satisfied that most local and international tourists are making an effort to comply with the water restrictions.
Lee Harris of the Backpack Hotel says guests don’t have any baths in their rooms and they’ve been asked to only flush their toilets when absolutely necessary.
“As a Capetonian, I’m very worried about the water situation in the City. In my own personal life I’ve done all that I can in my own home to redirect water. Same as in our business, we try our best to not overuse the resources that we have. Even though we might have a borehole, we try and use it as responsibly as possible…The main thing that’s made the biggest difference I think, is our guests have been standing in buckets in the showers and catching shower water, which they then put into wheely bins. We use that water to water our garden, which has been a big saving for us I think.” Harris said
Some tourists interviewed by CGTN Africa had the following to say;
“I’m coming from Switzerland. So, we have a lot of water. I’ve never been in a water problem so far. So, it’s a new situation. Normally, we can shower like 15 minutes and nobody cares about it. But, here I figure out it’s not a problem to shower like for one minute to just put the water off and do your showering stuff and it’s fine.”
“We read everywhere that there’s a water shortage. And some people I’m travelling with were taking a shower once a day or twice a day. Then I asked them only to take once a day. When they were in the pool they already had refreshment. We’re even thinking of taking a shorter shower now. Even back in Belgium I hope we will do… You feel like here, water is like money. You have to take care of it. Yeah, it’s mind-opening.”
One business that’s flourishing in Cape Town at the moment is the waterless carwash business. This carwash franchise, which has 25 branches across the City says the demand for its waterless service has increased immensely in the past six months.
“The product itself has got seven different ingredients inside. One of them actually encapsulates all the dirt. In other words it puts a micro-film around it immediately, within a milli-second. Then we wait for it to dry and we wipe it off. One of these 500ml does seven cars. If you look at the 25 litre drum, we do 350 cars and 25 litres of product.” Carl Baumeister, a Waterless carwash owner said.
Although some people cannot get their heads around the idea of a waterless carwash, this carwash says it’s been inundated with calls from new clients who are keen to
“We actually wax every single car that we wash. We don’t use water of course. So, it’s actually a much better option to actually use waterless. The product we wipe on, it takes us 20 seconds, it dries up a little bit and we wipe it off. Simple as that.” Baumeister added.
As Day Zero approaches, more and more ordinary Capetonians and businesses are looking for solutions to try and prevent the water crisis from turning into a catastrophe.
