#WaterCrisis: Where will we pee come May 13?

A Cape Argus reader asks the question that when day zero of the Water Crisis arrives, where will all the Western Cape residents urinate?

A Cape Argus reader asks the question that when day zero of the Water Crisis arrives, where will all the Western Cape residents urinate?

Published Nov 20, 2017

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Cape Town - On May 13, 2018, where will four million of us go to the toilet?

This serious question has been sent to the mayor of Cape Town and the premier of the Western Cape.

On May 13, when there is no water piped to houses and businesses and we are all queuing to carry home a few (heavy) litres of drinking water from a tanker, this surely will be for us an economic and social disaster.

Apart from the fact that there will be no piped water to houses to wash bodies, clothes and dishes, and to run businesses, without water the entire sewerage system, which relies on flowing water, will cease to function.

Where will four million people of Greater Cape Town go to the toilet?

If we get to this situation where there is no piped water, then surely the entire economy, including jobs and the property market of the Western Cape will collapse, with a major knock-on effect on the entire South African economy.

The authorities are to be commended for driving down demand, and building a certain amount of additional supply capacity (boreholes, desalination and recycling).

However, this does not appear to be in the quantities necessary, by May 13, to keep a modern economy running (500 million litres a day).

So, I repeat my question: On May 13, 2018, where will four million of us go to the toilet?

* R Lennox is a Cape Argus reader from Claremont

*** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

Cape Argus

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