Play your part
Staff and students alike can make a significant contribution to water saving – not only on campus, but also at home. Level 5 water restrictions are currently in force in the Stellenbosch and City of Cape Town municipal areas. This means that water consumption is limited to 87 litres per person per day.
Here is a list of things you can do to help save water:
Report leaky taps, sprinklers and other devices on campus to (021) 808-4666.
Make use of reusable bottles. Three to five litres of water are used to produce one litre of bottled water.
Be on the lookout for the new water stations with their special branding on the campuses.
Send more water-saving tips to groen_green@sun.ac.za.
Bathroom
- Take a shower rather than a bath. A half-full bath uses 113 litres of water, while a five-minute shower uses less than 56 litres. (Level 4 water restrictions encourage you to take a two-minute shower.)
- Do not let the tap water run into the drain while waiting for the water to warm up. Rather collect it in a container for re-use.
- Use eco-friendly soap so that the water can be re-used.
- For greywater – water from showers is recycled. Don’t contaminate it with other materials
- Close the tap when you soap your hands, brush your teeth or shave. A running tap wastes up to six litres of water within two minutes.
- Make sure all taps have been closed properly. A dripping tap wastes up to 30 litres per day, which equals 10 000 litres per year.
Kitchen
- Rinse vegetables and fruit in a basin filled with water rather than under a running tap. Use this water in the garden afterwards.
- Try not to do small loads in the washing machine. Wait until you have a large load before doing the washing or do your laundry with a friend.
- Do not fill up the kettle every time you boil water.
Study
- Communicate via electronic media. It takes 10 litres of water to produce one A4 page.