WATCH | How to get by if Cape Town cuts daily water limit to 50 litres

Capetonians have been under pressure for months to limit their individual water consumption to 87 litres a day‚ and many of them have failed to do so.

Announcing the new “day zero” of April 22 this week‚ mayor Patricia de Lille said only 54% of the city’s four million people were meeting the target.

Independent public policy expert Rolfe Eberhard said this week that even if 100% of Capetonians did so‚ the city would still run out of water before the end of summer.

The limit should be reduced to 50 litres‚ he said‚ and the city-wide target should be 450 million litres a day‚ 50 million litres below a target that has never been met (average consumption last week was 559 million litres).

If day zero does arrive — De Lille has said all taps except those in informal settlements will run dry when dam levels reach 13.5% (they are currently at 29.7%) — Capetonians will have to collect a daily allowance of 25 litres each from 200 distribution points across the city.

The 50 litres proposed by Eberhard‚ therefore‚ is twice the amount citizens will have available if the worst happens. And as this video shows‚ it’s more than enough.