The City of Cape Town is calling on residents to intensify their efforts to save water. Overall usage of drinking water is currently approximately 10% higher than the required savings target to prevent drawing dams down to dangerous levels by the end of summer.

The City of Cape Town advises residents that overall water consumption since the imposition of Level 3 restrictions is still 10% above the savings target of 800 million litres per day. In order to protect our water resources, residents have been asked to keep their water consumption over the coming summer months in line with their consumption over winter.

“The start of the hot summer months generally carries with it a spike in water use as residents fill up their pools and use more water in their gardens. If we are to meet our targets, residents will need to cut these activities back to winter levels, or intensify their efforts to save in other areas to keep their consumption in line with how much they used during winter. Approximately 70% of water in Cape Town is used by residential customers, and as such these consumers will have the biggest influence on how secure our future water supplies are”Alderman Ernest SonnenbergCity Mayoral Committee Member: Utility Services

Residents who would like to save water could consider harvesting rainwater or installing a borehole or water-well provided they register these with the City. This investment will also result in savings for residents in the long-run.

In addition to adhering to restrictions, residents can also employ the following tips in their homes:

• Ensure that washing machines or dishwashers have a full load before running them
• Rinse dishes and vegetables in a basin of water rather than under a running tap, and reuse the water for pot plants or in the garden
• Reuse rinse water for the next cycle of washing up
• Thaw frozen foods in the fridge, at room temperature, in a basin of water, or in a microwave rather than placing them under running water
• When using taps, don’t let the water run down the drain while waiting for the hot water or for the water to cool. Rather collect the water in a bottle
• Close the tap when brushing your teeth
• Plug the sink when shaving rather than rinsing your razor under running water
• Shower rather than taking a bath – a half-filled bath uses 113 litres of water, while a five-minute shower uses about 56 litres
• Install a water-saving showerhead, take shorter showers, don’t run the water at full force, and turn off the shower when soaping
• Reuse bath water in your garden
• Install a new water-saving toilet
• Check if your toilet is leaking. Furthermore, residents can place a 2-litre bottle filled with sand into their cistern to reduce the amount of water used with each flush
• Ensure that gardens do not require large amounts of water to maintain

For more information on water restrictions as well as a more exhaustive list of water savings suggestions, residents can visitwww.capetown.gov.za/thinkwater. The City will also be advising consumers of restrictions in an insert in their next municipal invoices. We encourage residents to familiarise themselves with these restrictions and display them prominently in their homes.

If residents would like to get clarity on any of the restrictions, they can also view the FAQ document at the link above. If this does not provide an explanation they need they can send an enquiry to water.restrictions@capetown.gov.za. Residents who would like to report contraventions by members of the public can do so by contacting the City’s call centre on 0860 103 089, sending an SMS to 31373, or sending an e-mail to contact.us@capetown.gov.za.

Click here to read and download the formal water restriction notice from the City of Cape Town

The Maitland CID team would like to urge business owners not to give recycled material to homeless people and in the same light, also help to discourage members of the public to give money to beggars. “In both cases, this humble gesture causes more harm than good”, says Gene Lorentz, manager of Geocentric Urban Management.

Gene says that by giving money to people begging, in whatever form, causes them to stay on the street without trying to find jobs and create better lives for themselves. It is easy to collect money or material which they can recycle for money and live of that for a day. The next day they do the same. It is just not sustainable.

He is a great supporter of the Give Responsible campaign, an initiative of the Central City Improvement District [CCID] and the City of Cape Town. The campaign urges the public to rather give their money or donations to NGOs such as shelters of halfway houses that are helping provide people living on the streets with warm beds, hot meals, family reunification services, trauma therapy and the necessary life skills to help them built a new life for themselves. For more information on the Give Responsible Campaign, go to www.giveresponsibly.co.za [](http://www.giveresponsibly.co.za)

Dumping in the Maitland CID remains a big challenge. Two favourite dumping sites that the Maitland CID team has to clear regularly are the corner of Coronation and Melon streets, as well as no. 5 Glamis Close. Various household items are also regularly dumped in Essex and Suffolk streets, although it seems to become less frequent.

Gene Lorentz, CEO of Geocentric urban management, urges businesses not to dump their waste or place their cardboard boxes outside for the vagrants to collect. This adds to the bigger social problems in the area.

Two businesses in the Maitland CID area went up in flames in May causing major damages. The owners of Zanzibar café on the corner of Voortrekker and Kensington, was sleeping on the premises when they were alerted by people on the street that the place is on fire. They managed to escape, but he shop was totally gutted. The fire at Liquor Mait was extinguished by employees of the shop by using fire extinguishers.

The public safety team of the Maitland CID had on various occasions during the past few months, intercepted Metro property such as railway lines, sleeper bolts and clamps. Amongst these incidents, the public safety officers caught three people digging against the wall on Prasa’s premises next to the railway line trying to uproot Prasa communication cables [see photo].

Prasa also started to clean up all the dumping along the railway lines between Koeberg and Maitland stations, including the area under the Prestige bridge. Prasa had to make use of private contractors to remove the dumping material and waste.

The successful safety partnership between the Maitland CID public safety team, SAPS, Law Enforcement and Traffic Services resulted in R49 700 worth of fines that were issued at various day and night time roadblocks in the Maitland City Improvement District during the months of April and May this year.

During these roadblocks on 29 and 30 April, as well as on 8, 14 and 15 May altogether 205 vehicles were stopped and 67 fines were issues. A person was also arrested for the possession of Mandrax and a taxi driver for driving under the influence of alcohol. The Law Enforcement Liquor Compliance Unit investigated 8 premises and fines worth R5 200 were issued for unlicensed sales. A number of people were arrested for drug related charges at a night club in Voortrekker Road during a SAPS operation in the area.

Towards the end of January an increase in crime in the Maitlaid CID area were experienced. One of the big challenges is the Metro Rail security situation which saw more attempted break-ins form the area.

“The constant battle with stolen trolleys and wheelie bins continue every day and we hope that our zero-tolerance approach has a positive impact,” says Gene Lorentz, CEO of management company Geocentric. It is not uncommon to find all kinds of stolen property in these trolleys which ranges from car batteries, counterfeit goods, car parts to vehicle spares, copper wire and cables and metal.

Several arrests were made during this period including the confiscation of 90 City of Cape Town blue bags – a case that was handed over to the SAPS.

The operations of the Geocentric Urban Cleaning Team are progressing well. Litter picking and dealing with illegal dumping is a continuous challenge within the CID boundaries, but we can already see the benefits of our revised cleaning plan in which we attend to more aspects than merely litter picking, removing of graffiti and posters and general cleansing.

The infographic below gives a general overview of the first three months of 2015.