Flushing out water wasters

28 July 2015 - 02:01 By Nivashni Nair

Following in the footsteps of irate Californians, an unidentified KwaZulu-Natal resident has turned to social media to name and shame water wasters. The Facebook group, Water Wastage Zululand, encourages residents to expose "those (who) don't care" and ignore water restrictions during the severe drought in KwaZulu-Natal.The Zululand group has already exposed a clinic worker who used a fire hose to wash his car and a resident who pressure-cleaned his roof. While Californian drought-shaming results in fines, offending Zululand residents only face the humiliation of being exposed on Facebook.uMhlathuze municipal spokes-man Mdu Ncalane said: "We encourage residents to report leaks, but we can't really do anything if someone is reported for wasting water because there are no bylaws for that."We can only hope that residents realise that there is a drought and follow the restrictions."The 126mm of rainfall recorded from Wednesday to yesterday has not been sufficient to increase the level of Hazelmere Dam to any significant degree.KwaZulu-Natal cooperative governance and traditional affairs MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube said yesterday: "The public must not take the recent rains as evidence that the drought is over. Statistically, most of our dams have only recorded minimal water gains, in the region of one or two percentage points."..

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