Gyms sweat it out to save on water usage

Fitness centres across South Africa are doing their part to cut back on excessive water use.

Fitness centres across South Africa are doing their part to cut back on excessive water use.

Published Jan 26, 2017

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Cape Town - Gyms are often guilty of using excessive amounts of water, particularly during the country’s worst drought in two decades, but fitness centres across the country are doing everything they can to cut back.

A full council is set to vote today on escalating water restrictions in Cape Town to Level 3b.

Santie de Kock, the national marketing manager at Zone Fitness, said that posters had been hung at all their branches to create water savings awareness.

“We have also limited the showering time to five minutes and all our showers are equipped with water-saving shower heads,” said De Kock.

“We have a daily cleaning schedule but we have implemented spray bottles instead of buckets of water for cleaning, and micro-fibre mops,” she said.

Virgin Active spokesperson Les Aupiais said: “We’ve had water restrictions in place for some time with a very visible campaign in the clubs.”

She said they had reduced backwashing of their lap pools to once a week, saving tens of thousands of litres of water.

Virgin Active had also installed water-saving shower heads and also restricted showers to five minutes.

Aupiais said some pools at their gyms had to be closed owing to low water levels.

Mayco member Xanthea Limberg said there was no overall exemption that applied to gyms.

Cape Argus

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