Tsogo Sun bans bathing as Cape Town businesses aim for new 20% drought target
The Tsogo Sun hotel group has introduced a range of water-savings measures, including the banning of bathing, to cut down on wasteful water usage.
Speaking to CapeTalk’s John Maytham, director for Tsogo Sun’s Cape region John van Rooyen said that the hotels have reduced about 20% of their water consumption, in line with new requirements introduced by mayor Patricia de Lille at the beginning of September.
“We introduced a monitoring system called station seven, which checks consumption levels of hotels by the hour. I must say all hotels have come to the party,” Van Rooyen said.
“We also have introduced our linen changes to be less frequent, same with the towels.”
Other water saving measures introduced include the replacement of linen serviettes with paper serviettes and the removal of bath plugs from hotel bathrooms, meaning all patrons may only shower.
Van Rooyen indicated that the group was considering taking four of their hotels off the grid entirely.
Drought and business
On Sunday, the City of Cape Town announced Level 5 water restrictions for the city’s residents and businesses would be implemented immediately.
“The upper limit of 87 litres per person and the overall target of 500 million litres per day of collective consumption remain in place. However, there is now a new emphasis on capping excessive water use at the domestic household level and placing additional restrictions on the commercial sector,” mayor Patricia de Lille said.
“The managers of commercial properties must with immediate effect ensure that their monthly consumption of the municipal supply of water is reduced by 20% compared with a year ago.
“The city acknowledges that there are some commercial properties that have made great strides to reduce consumption of municipal water, and therefore the historical usage of individual commercial properties and their efforts to install improved water management technologies will be taken into account when considering any enforcement measures against the owners of commercial properties in the future,” she said.
While details on commercial fines were not available, de Lille indicated that she had been talking to the chief magistrate to have fines increased across the board – including a steep R5,000 – R10,000 fine for domestic water wasters.
According to Cape Town’s official water-tracking utility, the region’s major dam levels were at 35% capacity as of 4 September.
However, as the last 10% of a dam’s water is difficult to use, the useable water in the dam is approximately 10% less than the dam level, meaning the usable water level is closer to 25%.
The average dam levels for the province at this time last year was 61%, while the average level last week was 32.73%.
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