Petition to cancel Slide the City

Concerned South Africans have launched a petition to cancel the Slide the City event, where a 300 metre long water slide will use up to 40 000 litres of water, despite the country-wide drought.

The event kicks off in December in Port Elizabeth and is scheduled to take place in Ballito on January 9 and 10 at Sugar Rush Park.

This event was cancelled in Los Angeles due to the devastating drought they are experiencing after more than 10 000 people signed a petition.

Now a similar petition was started for the South African event.

Derna Stemmet said on the petition that hosting such an event while South Africa is going through a big water crisis was definitely not going to help.

“It is an obvious fact that this event is unnecessary and the water being wasted can be use for a better purpose,” she said.

The Ballito event will use water from a borehole at Sugar Rush Park.

Event organiser, Minette Ferreira said the water used will be filtered and recycled back to Sugar Rush.

“We are committed to having zero environmental impact on the communities we are in. We want to provide a safe and sustainable experience for all of our participants,” said Ferreira.

The slide was apparently designed to recycle and treat water throughout the day instead of having to pump new water onto the slide.

Ballito based environmental scientist, Simon Bundy said the amount of water used by the event was not enough to have a significant effect on that particular area’s water table and recycling the water back to the farm’s water supply after the event would not have a negative effect on the area’s water supply.