It’s not only businesses and public entities that should assume the responsibility of saving water, but homeowners can play a major role as well.

A Cape Town school recently installed a Water Rhapsody [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 25 Aug 2011

It’s not only businesses and public entities that should assume the responsibility of saving water, but homeowners can play a major role as well.

A Cape Town school recently installed a Water Rhapsody Poolside Tank to recycle up to 15000 litres of swimming pool backwash water every week; sending the clarified water safely back to the pool.

CEO of car rental company Avis, Wayne Duvenage, did not mince his words at the Sustainable Water Resource Conference and Exhibition; attended by leading water experts and business people.

Recycling water for reuse in buildings was the experts’ principal recommendation. Homeowners are also advised to go for recycling technologies.

Avis saved 75-million litres of water in 2010 in its major centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. Harvesting rainwater is a focus of Avis’ recycling efforts. “You know how much it rains in Cape Town, so it’s nice to switch off municipal water and use rainwater,” said Duvenage.

South Africa is water-stressed, experts at the conference revealed. Reports have pointed out that the country runs the risk of facing critical shortages by 2020.

“South Africa is stressed both in the quantity and quantity of water that we have,” Duvenage said.

Alison Groves, a sustainability consultant at WSP Green by Design, said: “In South Africa we need to get beyond the idea that water is always going to be available.”

New solutions are needed to sustain potable water availability, Groves added.

Banking group Absa’s headquarters in downtown Johannesburg have been fitted with recycling and rainwater harvesting technology that allows it to save at least 43 000 litres of water every day.

Retailer Woolworths’ distribution centre in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, is another facility with a large grey water reclamation system. Groves pointed out that the centre has “irrigation ensured for 10 months per year without using potable water”.

The grey water technology of Cape Town-based Water Rhapsody, a specialist water conservation company, has proven its efficiency in recent years.

Its founder Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor said that water recycled and harvested through its system is suitable for irrigation, toilet flushing, cleaning and washing.

Homes can reduce consumption from 280 litres to “as little as 100 litres per day” and save up to 90% of their municipal water bill by using the system.

“But it’s done in such a way that you don’t change your lifestyle. You just take control of your own supply,” said Westgarth-Taylor.

Water Rhapsody won the WWF Green Trust award in 1998 for product innovation. It’s helped the University of Cape Town reduce potable water consumption by over 90%.

The late Kader Asmal, former Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, told Water Rhapsody, in a 2010 letter to the company, that its water recycling system helped nourish grass and shrubs in the garden of his Cape Town home.

By Bongani Nkosi
Edited by Admin

Now that winter is here it’s a good time to install a rainwater tank and reduce your home’s reliance on Cape Town’s precious water.

5000 litre tank used to supply home with harvested [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 01 June 2011

Now that winter is here it’s a good time to install a rainwater tank and reduce your home’s reliance on Cape Town’s precious water.

5000 litre tank used to supply home with harvested rainwater

WHY RAINWATER?

A rainwater tank is a great way to make a difference to the environment and reduce your annual household water and sewerage costs.

It’s always a good time to install a rainwater tank, and now makes good sense given our winter rainfall pattern.

The average rainfall for Cape Town is approximately 600mm per annum. 10mm of rain on 100sqm of roof provides up to 1000 litres of stored water. A 100sqm roof will provide a whopping 60,000 litres a year.

Homeowners have the ability to make a great difference to the local water supply simply by installing a tank and system that will allow for the use of the stored water throughout their home and garden.

CHOOSING A TANK

Contrary to belief you don’t need a big tank to make good use of harvested rainwater for your home.

The size of the tank is calculated using the roof catchment area, type of roof, number of people in the home, etc., and the tank can be as small as 1500 litres. Harvested rainwater is drawn down constantly and replenished at each rainfall. So it makes no sense to have 10000 litres of storage capacity when the roof size and rainfall cannot fill the tanks.

Aesthetics may be an important factor when deciding on a tank. Tanks are available in a number of different colours and styles with the most common, and most cost effective, being the vertical round tank that is placed above ground.

Water Rhapsody Rain Runner. Used to harvest clean water.

Systems used to harvest rainwater no longer require that the tank is positioned close or under a downpipe, or outside the lounge window. Tanks can now be unobtrusively positioned at the bottom of the garden, out of sight, with pipe work concealed underground.

Water Rhapsody offers a vast range of rainwater tanks for domestic or commercial use, starting from 260-litre through to 27000 litre tanks, including slimline and underground tanks.

GRAND OPUS

Plumbing a rainwater tank into the house supply can be readily achieved for most established homes, but requires professional expertise.

Water Rhapsody offers their Grand Opus; a solution that ensures your home can run efficiently off an uninterrupted pressurized rainwater supply, with seamless transition to municipal water in the event of a sustained dry period.

With a Grand Opus the home would be assured of water at all times, even in the event of a water outage, for up to 2-days.

Installing a grey water system provides safe garden irrigation all year round and saves money and water.

Using grey water for irrigation

Grey water is waste water from baths, basins showers and washing [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 16 April 2011

Installing a grey water system provides safe garden irrigation all year round and saves money and water.

Using grey water for irrigation

Grey water is waste water from baths, basins showers and washing machines, and can be used safely to irrigate lawns and gardens provided certain rules are followed.

Rule 1. The correct choice of washing powders is necessary to avoid harm to plants (also see: Commercial washing powders destroy wetland). The use of a phosphate-free washing powder is required as well as avoiding fabric softeners or sodium hypochlorite, eg Jik. Provided that laundry washing powder is changed to one that is phosphate free, grey water is perfectly safe for all gardens, including fynbos.

Rule 2. It is important to avoid wastewater from kitchen sinks and dishwashers as this wastewater contains detergents that can harm your garden.

Rule 3. When harvesting grey water it is necessary to expel the wastewater to the garden immediately – it may not be stored for later use, as in a short period the grey water turns to black water.

Once grey water has been correctly identified it is re-routed from the gully (sewer) to a small chamber from where it is automatically and silently pumped to the garden for irrigation. This is normally sent to a flexible hose and pyramid style sprinkler, providing up to 6 meters of spray.

A correctly installed system must also be connected to the sewer pipe line. This will ensure that any overflow, e.g. caused by a power failure, will see the grey water sent to sewer.

Water Rhapsody has 18 years of experience in grey water solutions, and provides a complete system installation; leaving you with years of free water and a green, healthy garden.

In the early 1990s water conservation pioneer, Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor, was dedicated to bringing water conservation to the residential home and business.

Saving water with Water Rhapsody Conservation Systems

In 1995 his efforts were [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 03 April 2011

In the early 1990s water conservation pioneer, Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor, was dedicated to bringing water conservation to the residential home and business.

Saving water with Water Rhapsody Conservation Systems

In 1995 his efforts were rewarded with a WWF Green Trust Award for water conservation.

Today Water Rhapsody is a national concern with 25 outlets that provide professional advice on how water conservation can be introduced to your home or business.

With over 3000 installations Water Rhapsody can clearly state that they are the leaders in water conservation.

Water Rhapsody systems include:

1.       Garden Rhapsody (grey water) for garden irrigation or toilet flushing;
2.       Grand Opus – a rainwater harvesting solution for the home that augments municipal supply;
3.       Rainwater Harvesting for garden irrigation, pool top-up, washing cars, etc.;
4.       Poolside Tank to safely clarify swimming pool backwash water and return this to the pool;
5.       Multi Flush where the least amount of water is used to clear the toilet pan;
6.       Poseidon systems for recycling of mild industrial wastewater, car washing, machine washing, industrial laundry and irrigation.

To learn more about these systems click on the links above.

The Water Rhapsody product range has been enhanced with the inclusion of its Poseidon range to meet the needs of its increasing customer base, both industrial and residential.

Poseidon Product Range 1.      Poseidon Advantage [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 11 February 2011

The Water Rhapsody product range has been enhanced with the inclusion of its Poseidon range to meet the needs of its increasing customer base, both industrial and residential.

Poseidon Product Range
1.      Poseidon Advantage – Close to 100% of mild industrial water can now be recycled for re-use.
2.      Poseidon 1500 – A smaller version of the Poseidon Advantage that uses recycled water for irrigation purposes.

Application of the Poseidon
The Poseidon range belongs to the Water Rhapsody family of water conservation systems. Specifically, the Poseidon has its use in light industrial applications, for example;

• Car Wash
• Machinery washing
• Washing of food crates for retail distribution
• Industrial and commercial laundries.

The Poseidon returns 99% of water for re-use in its’ own application. Every application is slightly different and Water Rhapsody advises on each new system to cater for each customer’s different needs.

Optional extras include ultra violet and ozone purification. Where there is a need for a specialized purification function, such as ultra filtration and reverse osmosis, Water Rhapsody outsources to specific partners.

Process
This new Water Rhapsody development is a very safe way of recycling grey water. The process makes use of a trap to separate sand and non-emulsified oil and grease from the grey water, which then proceeds through the system where the food content of the grey water is digested, or scientifically, the biological oxygen demand is removed.

The Poseidon Advantage then strips the water of the suspended solids as well as some of the dissolved solids. In this stripping process the water is clarified and is ready for re-use in most applications. The need to sterilize the water is an added option depending on the application.

The Poseidon 1500 does not strip the water of the valuable dissolved solids found in grey water and thus the water is not clarified. This water is however excellent quality for irrigation purposes.

Any further details required please contact your nearest Water Rhapsody Franchisee.

The maximum consumption that SA’s water resources can sustain will be reached in about five years, warns Engineering Council of SA vice-president Thoko Majozi.

Garden Rhapsody. A grey water solution by Water Rhapsody.

As a cost effective, unique water saving device, the Multi Flush beats all other systems hands down.

By fitting the unique Multi Flush huge water savings can be made

A Water Rhapsody Multi [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 23 January 2011

As a cost effective, unique water saving device, the Multi Flush beats all other systems hands down.

By fitting the unique Multi Flush huge water savings can be made

A Water Rhapsody Multi Flush is a flushing mechanism installed into cisterns without the need to alter either the cistern or pan, and amortizes cost in a matter of months. This is most easily understood by corporate customers who only need to lift the money from their operating budget, as it pays for itself within the year, and for the rest of time can take advantage of the savings while water prices rise.

Schools

Our first large school to enquire about what we could do for them had eight problems relating to girls toilet flushing.  As with most schools during the change to Model C, classes were increased from 15 pupils per classroom to 30 or more; in other words the school populations were doubled.  What had not changed was the time for breaks, nor the ablution facility. The problem was restricted to girls, the boys being able to use a urinal as well as their toilets.

The problems

1.       UTI’s. Girls were presenting UTI’s (urinary tract infections) especially cystitis. The girls that didn’t want to use a fouled toilet or didn’t make it to the end of the queue by the end of break simply had to hold on, making UTI’s and cystitis in particular a problem.

2.       Queues. The queue to the toilets was too long to reach the end in the break times. The doubled number of girls with the same number of toilets either needed a faster turnover or an extended break time.  The problem was the extraordinary time the large cisterns were taking to fill, and with the siphon type flushing mechanism these needed to fill before they could be flushed again.

3.       Broken siphons. The siphon flushing systems were breaking.  This was due to the considerable energetic cranking of the handle to get them to work before filling properly.  To give say six hard cranks for one flush reduced the lifespan of the mechanism, and if one toilet was put out of commission this was a disaster. Naturally the urgent need for plumbers to maintain the broken systems was an unbudgeted expense.

4.       Fouled toilets. At the end of break the toilets were fouled. The turnover needed to reduce the queue meant that towards the end of break the girls no longer cared about a fouled toilet.

5.       Money. The capital needed to double size of the ablution facility. Before asking Water Rhapsody to help, they were trying to raise 50 times the value actually paid to us.

6.       Janitor Staff. A janitor was required to flush the toilets after break and clean up the toilets.  This was logical or there would have been further problems relating to disease.

7.       Blockages. A regular occurrence from heavily fouled toilets.

8.       Budget. The water budget was exceeded.  Naturally the demand for water more than doubled.

Water Rhapsody installation

We installed Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush devices into all of the girl’s toilets. The problems went away and consumption reduced to less than previous demand.

I.            Consider the start of break after installation. With a Multi Flush the first girls to use the toilets (remember that 5 out of six toilet flushes per day are for urine only) flush perhaps two to three litres of water from the cistern into the pan, out of the fifteen litre cistern that exists (at this school).  Between he changeover from the first to the next girl, some water has flowed via the ball valve into the cistern, and perhaps even filling it again, but if not there is plenty of water for the next girl, and this was representative of the whole of the break.  The flow from the ball valve is around a litre a minute, which just about matches the demand.

II.            The queue moves at a pace such that before the end of break there is no longer any queue at all.

III.            The siphon devices are gone, the cranking is eliminated and also the need to maintain broken flushing devices. Needless to say that one of the benefits of the Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush is that it is very robust.  Though the system needs a very gentle touch to get it to work, it can take a lot of abuse, and if broken the repair is nothing like that of the work to repair a siphon device.  In any case the major institutions that have installed the Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush have needed us to do only one single repair over ten years.

IV.            The fouling stopped.  This problem simply went away.

V.            Capital needs were very satisfactorily dispensed with.

VI.            It is not known what happened regarding the janitor, but perhaps she had better things to do than flushing fouled toilets after every break.

VII.            We had no complaints regarding blockages.

VIII.            The demand for water was actually less than the volume prior to implementation of model C.

Further reasons for installing a Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush

A.      The Multi Flush has all the qualities of a market leader: price, efficiency and longevity.

B.      Demand for water is reduced.

C.      Volume of effluent is reduced.  This needs some explanation.  It was pointed out in a country wide report in 2010 that there is virtually not one sewerage treatment works able to cope with the volume of effluent reaching the respective works.  The Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush reduces the volume of water needed for flushing by a minimum of 70%.  The results at University of Cape Town were that we reduced the volume by 90%.  This means that the effluent volume is reduced by that amount too, reducing the total load at the sewerage treatment works by that amount. Installed country wide the Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush would have precisely the same consequence.

D.      The Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush amortizes the cost in less than a year.

Misconceptions regarding the Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush

a)      Misconception – There is not enough water to carry the solids down the pipeline. The fact that there is less water in the sewer system does not mean that this causes blockages.  The reduced volume is quite sufficient.

b)      Misconception – Pre-school users will not be able to use the Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush system properly. We have installed this system into many pre-schools.   Furthermore the Water Rhapsody Second Movement (the re-use of grey water for toilet flushing) is also used in exactly the same way, in that you are only able to flush as long as a bell push button is held in the push position. This also means that the flushing stops when the bell push is released. We have installed this system at the Green School crèche at the Old Mutual campus. This crèche has more than three hundred pre-school children, and they are testament to the fact that they have no problem with the ability of children in pre-school to use a Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush.

Environmental spin offs

Once we have installed these systems in schools and universities, children, lecturers, teachers and professors alike are convinced of the benefits of the Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush.  The children educate their friends and family, and question why they don’t have such a system, while academic staff is keen to use less water with our Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush in their own homes.

Schools are a good place to target for installing the Water Rhapsody Multi-Flush, for every good reason.

By: Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor – Founder of Water Rhapsody.  Inventor of all the Water Rhapsody Systems.

While the fear of water restrictions work in favour of those of us who are involved in water conservation, [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 23 January 2011

By: Jeremy Westgarth-Taylor – Founder of Water Rhapsody.  Inventor of all the Water Rhapsody Systems.

While the fear of water restrictions work in favour of those of us who are involved in water conservation, it would be preferable for all of us to have smoothed restrictions rather than an all or nothing scenario.  All of us mean the population at large, the municipality, the Department of Environmental Affairs as well as Water Rhapsody. Please let me explain…

Although the upper Steenbras is almost full the majority of this water is stored for electricity power generation

Cycle of drought

Six, seven years or perhaps even eight years may elapse between one and the next season of drought.  These years between drought cycles are winter months in Cape Town of higher than average rainfall, and the reverse in the northern regions of South Africa where we get summer rains. During these years of higher than average rainfall, all thought of the fact that we live in a water poor region of the world, is forgotten.  Forgotten is the notion of drought by the bureaucrats and politicians that run our city.  Drought is a long forgotten figment in the memory of the population at large as well.  Every drought season, virtually a whole new generation needs to be re-educated in our need to use less water, and how to use less of the precious stuff.  We should not forget what was written in biblical times that we have seven years of drought and seven years of plenty.  While some areas north of Cape Town are experiencing floods of the magnitude seen but forgotten, the floods normally coincide with drought in the Western Cape.

During the years of drought in the Western Cape from 2000 to 2004, Capetonians had restrictions and increases in water tariffs imposed the like of which we hadn’t seen before.  The city even appointed some officers to police water use, which officers disappeared into the woodwork (redeployed), and after higher than average rainfall fell in 2005 all restrictions were lifted with the exception of daily irrigation times(no watering between the times of ten till four 0’clock).  Laughable though it is, this is the only water restriction left, and no police to check on this.  It would be silly too to deploy a police force to check up whether or not you were watering your garden a 10.30 in the morning!

New drought cycle.

We are as I write going into a drought cycle in the Western Cape.  This is going to be the mother of droughts ever seen if the stacked reports from climatologists are correct.  We have been warned of this drought, and our Department of Water and Environmental Affairs should know of this too.  It is strange that the people who work for this governmental department have not applied restrictions in a bid to save water while we still have water in our storage dams. Within eight months there will be panic in local and higher ranking government when we have little or no water.  We will have poor rainfall in the winter of 2011, and 2012 and more than likely 2013. This will mean that the supply dams to Cape Town that are falling at record rates and are already getting low for this time of the year may dry up completely.   There are another three months of summer to go and if the dams continue to fall at this rate (2.8% per week), then expect the dam levels to be at around 45% of capacity by mid April.  It would take a year of higher than average rainfall to put the dams back to where they were at the start of this summer season.  But alas higher than average rainfall is not forecast.  Rainfall of below average is forecast, and perhaps the dams will rise but perchance to less than 80% of capacity.  This is the magic figure at which 30% restrictions get announced, and this decision would be taken in October.

The meaning of 30% restrictions by DWEA

30% restrictions merely mean that DWEA (Department of Water and Environmental Affairs) demand from the Municipality that they show a reduction in demand of 30% less than the volume of water that Cape Town is allocated by DWEA. It is up to Cape Town Municipality as to what restrictions they put in place to lower demand by the prescribed percentage.

Low Fruit

The low fruit has a couple of meanings here.  The first is the low fruit of supply generally, that of dam building and simply robbing rivers of their water. Hereafter desalination of water is the higher fruit as this comes at a price far higher than raw river water.  The second low fruit pertains to the dams, viz water quality in the dams differs from dam to dam, and some are much further away than others.  Also some are deep and others have a huge surface area delivering their yield to evaporation. Actually the aspect of evaporation is very serious.

The low fruit of dam water use has already been picked.  The low fruit of the water in the lower Steenbras dam which though in today’s terms is small, is close to Cape Town and is good quality raw water.  This dam is now below 50% of capacity, and there is precious little inflow to augment the yield.  Although the upper Steenbras is almost full (97%) the majority of this water is stored for electricity power generation. This power generation works under normal circumstances to level the graph of the daily amount of electricity needed for the City of Cape Town which has spikes in the morning and evening, and troughs in the middle of the day and during the night.  During these spikes, water is allowed to flow down to the Gordon’s Bay side through the mountain turning huge hydro electric generators, and in the period of low consumption the water is pumped back up to Steenbras.  However there is a large pipe from the lower dam to the sea, so if we had plenty of water in the upper dam, and needed some extra electricity, this could be used as a hydro electric generation plant until all the water in the dam was used up.  If  we have energy shortages, you bet much of the precious stored water in the upper dam will be used for energy consumption, or at least held in the upper dam for a ‘just in case’, which of course makes this water unavailable for domestic consumption but rather kept for energy generation.

Once the water in the lower Steenbras dams is consumed and it is going fast, then Cape Town Municipality must start to rely more heavily on the poorer quality water from Theewaterskloof and other outlying dams. This water is more expensive to process, and the lower the dam level gets, the worse the quality.

Politicians dam building and jobs.

Election fever has also gripped South Africa, and any immediate talk of water restrictions in the coveted Western Cape must be dispelled.  It seems so strange that the issue of drought which inevitable leads to water restrictions should be seen as bad political management.  The city politicians could not be more wrong.  There is a sense of camaraderie in times of shortages, and we all help each other, and in fact jobs are created during these times.  What is unpopular though is the loss of revenue to the Council when restrictions are imposed.  Revenue from the sale of water goes to the fiscal budget and profits are used wherever the bureaucrats and councillors like.  The less the volume of water that is sold by the municipality, the higher goes the tariffs, and in actual fact an escalation in tariffs is an excellent way of stemming demand for water.  In reality though the city staff who run water supply are well aware that when both tariffs and water restrictions are applied together, the average use per person per day drops which is absolutely logical.  What they don’t like is that the per capita usage once restrictions are lifted never returns to the same point as before the restrictions were imposed and prices escalated.  The following fact is not just surmise:  this is the reason why demand does not increase after restrictions are lifted shows that devices to save water are very effective. Once Water Rhapsody clients use our unique systems, there is no looking back.   The efficiency of the Water Rhapsody Systems goes on and on.  This very important fact was given to me by Dave Ramsay who was the chief water engineer for Cape Town a few years ago.  If only the authorities would realize what they could possible do for our environment by actually promoting water saving with all the tools at their disposal including the devices that Water Rhapsody supply and install.

Job creation through demand management

Far, far more permanent jobs are created during times of drought than the temporary jobs created during dam building activities.   It was so interesting to hear the engineers responsible for the building of the last dam possible in Cape Town, that of the Berg River Scheme, using job creation as a motive to build the dam.  They built temporary houses for their staff and housed them there.  After the dam building process was complete, all the staff were retrenched, and the houses were all sold.  So is it up to those who wish to conserve water to provide jobs?  The answer is an emphatic YES.

Politicians excuse

Of course the fact that there are floods in some parts of the country helps the politicians down play any need for water saving in the Western Cape.  We see daily jockeying for positions for Mayor, party elections, and promises regarding jobs etc.  There is simply no time to address items of so little importance as water, and nobody wants to take an unpopular decision like instituting water restrictions.

Cape Town out of water by 2012

I have stated regularly that the year 2012 will be the year that Cape Town runs out of water.  The debate now will be interesting as to who gets priority over supply of water.  Who will get water in times of outages?  Will farmers get their share?  When Theewaterskloof was built and filled, 90% of water from the dam was assigned for agricultural use.  The farmers though could not use all the water allocated to them and the then DWAF (Department of Water Affairs and Forestry) as it was known then decided that because the farmers did not take up their allocation, that this water would be allocated to Cape Town Municipality.  This gave Cape Town water security in the middle eighties, but since Cape Town has grown so rapidly, this will be insufficient in years of lower than average rainfall, which years we are now in.

Future augmentation – desalination

We have plentiful sea water for desalination purposes do I hear you say?  In order to desalinate enough water to provide one days supply, we will need six million kilowatt hours of electricity. We simply do not have enough energy nor will we be able to find this capacity in the near future. If say at worst we should run out of water completely like Beaufort West.  The average daily demand for water is 1.5 million cubic metres.  The amount of extra energy we would need to desalinate this volume of water would be a minimum of 6 million kilowatt hours every day, for the desalination process.  This water would need to be blended with some other water, most likely treated sewerage water for palatability, and pressurized to municipal pressure.  This would be expensive and with energy we simply won’t be able to find.  Until now all the supply water for Cape Town has been virgin raw water extracted from rivers.  The end to this luxury is nigh.

Water outages

Water outages are a blunt but absolute as an efficient demand management measure (to get people to use less water).  Will we have to endure water outages or wont we?

If everyone installed water saving devices as per the Water Rhapsody Systems of Conservation, we would have no need for measures as tough as outages, but this is not the case. The steps of what can be done culminate in the following:  Install the Water Rhapsody Grand Opus to provide rainwater to the whole household.  This unique system receives rainwater from roofs but is also augmented with municipal water to give all households an emergency supply seamlessly. Water Rhapsody fix the emergency supply from the municipal to your water tank/s for an emergency supply when, (not if) the Municipality turn off the water supply.  If you lived in Beaufort West and had installed the Water Rhapsody System, you would have a contiguous supply, and you would be unaffected by outages.  Secondly should you reduce your demand for water (without a change of lifestyle) you could reduce your water demand (usage) by half.  The reduction in demand is essential to get your precious saved rainwater to go so much further, and is done in five ways viz: by re-using grey water for irrigation purposes, or for toilet flushing, by re-using swimming pool backwash water and lastly by the use minimizing toilet flushing.

As restrictions bite, the municipality will quickly wake up to the erosion of their revenue, and will raise water rates.  These rates will represent the price of the next augmentation scheme, and the capital to provide enough energy for running the water augmentation, that is of course desalination.

All of these systems come at a cost, and the question is frequently asked, can we afford to install such systems?  Our answer is a rhetorical question: can we afford not to do these things?  Well the answer will be a resounding YES as soon as restrictions bite, and bite them surely will!

Werner Neuhoff, Ecopreneur from Water Rhapsody- South Africa, has been invited to join leaders from 70 nations in Montréal, Québec during 13-15 October for a World Leadership Conference that will draw women heads of state, [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 27 September 2010

Werner Neuhoff, Ecopreneur from Water Rhapsody- South Africa, has been invited to join leaders from 70 nations in Montréal, Québec during 13-15 October for a World Leadership Conference that will draw women heads of state, corporations and enterprise, as well as members of the diplomatic community, women policy-makers, decision-takers and opinion-leaders on five continents.

Werner Neuhoff displays some Water Rhapsody Conservation interventions

An anticipated 800 – 1,000 leaders for this global dialogue that will focus on Water, Wealth & Power for the Eco-Century.

As we confront a growing scarcity of the world’s most indispensable resource, the International Women’s Forum (IWF) will convene in Canada  (13-15 October 2010)  to explore and better understand what’s at stake — drawing together from our global membership, leaders of influence from outside the traditional realm of the “water community”.

Hearing from the world’s leading experts, advocates and catalysts for change who will address the World Conference, their global membership will be challenged to test the boundaries of possibility for a new era of improved access to and utilization of water resources. Werner Neuhoff, a South African born entrepreneur, would be presenting to this global audience on October 15, 2010 at 8:35 am in Montréal for the Plenary Program – Ecopreneurs: The Blue Gold Rush.

The conference is designed to invite a serious rethinking of how domestic and foreign policies must be shaped for strong global leadership on this most pressing and urgent issue.  Aiming at the heart of what our global leaders understand best, the program will underscore how enterprise, economies, societies and nations will be built in an eco-century that is reshaping wealth and power for more equitable social, economical and political realities.

The International Women’s Forum (IWF) is a global organization of preeminent women of significant and diverse achievement. It is a one-of-a-kind organization of singular standing in the world today that furthers dynamic leadership, leverages global access, and maximizes opportunities for women to exert their influence.

Analysis of Rainwater Harvesting Market in Europe and India provides an in-depth analysis of the rainwater harvesting (RWH) market in Europe and India. This research service analyses the revenues generated by the installation of [...]]]> Posted by: Saving Water SA (Cape Town, South Africa) – partnered with Water Rhapsody conservation systems – 04 August 2010

Analysis of Rainwater Harvesting Market in Europe and India provides an in-depth analysis of the rainwater harvesting (RWH) market in Europe and India. This research service analyses the revenues generated by the installation of rainwater harvestings systems in residential, industrial and commercial end-user segments.

Industrialisation and a growing population have given rise to a severe fresh water shortage in many countries. RWH, which involves the collection and storage of rainwater, is an affordable and sustainable solution to this problem.

Although RWH has been practiced for several years, it is only in recent years that countries have given it a serious thought with several passing legislations and offering incentives to promote the concept. A significant driver for the RWH market in India has been the state level legislations that have made RWH mandatory for all new buildings in certain states.

The key driver in Europe has been the steep water prices with several European countries topping the global water tariff list.

Majority of the states in India have passed legislations making the installation of RWH systems in all buildings mandatory. The state of Tamil Nadu was among the first to take this initiative and has witnessed considerable success.

In Europe, countries, such as Denmark and Germany have the highest water tariffs in the world. In addition to the legislations and high water tariffs, certain countries also offer incentives to promote the concept of rainwater harvesting. These initiatives have resulted in significant growth in Europe and several other countries, such as the United Kingdom and France. These are expected to help double-digit growth in the coming years.

However, it has been a challenge to create awareness about the benefits of RWH, declining the level of implementation and thereby, restraining growth in the RWH market in Europe and India. Furthermore, the RWH systems used in India are conventional in their design, involving tedious installation procedures and regular maintenance – an area of concern for the end users. [Note: Water Rhapsody’s Grand Opus is a Rainwater Harvesting System that provides an uninterrupted pressurized water supply that only requires quarterly re-pressurization – a very simple 2-minute process]

In India, water is offered to the general public at a subsidised rate by the government and the water tariffs are relatively low compared to developed nations. There is minimal interest among the general public towards rainwater harvesting as it is more economical to buy the water from the government than incur the costs of installing a RWH system.

The RWH system suppliers need to come up with a unique design that is simple to install, without much civil work and easy to clean. Apart from the government and NGOs, equipment suppliers should also play a key role in creating awareness among the public, especially amongst children, about the importance and the benefits of practicing RWH.

Source: Official Spin