Industries tighten taps for water week

LOCAL industry leaders have been watering down their H2O consumption at factories and on sites to support last week’s National Water Week.

For this year’s campaign, the Department of Water Affairs tagged the drive ‘water for development’ to highlight the critical need of water for poverty alleviation.

Mineral sands mine Richards Bay Minerals (RBM), which last year won the Water Conservation and Water Demand Management Sector Awards (WCWDM), says water preservation is important for companies’ productivity.

‘At a company level, we have a robust recycling system for all our operations,’ said RBM Technical General Manager Johan Jacobs.

‘RBM is an intensive water user, and has an integrated water management strategy which ensures that the company maximises opportunities to recycle and reuse water.

‘The smelting plant reuses water 21 times before it is sent to the mining ponds.

‘We use water in all areas of our lives: businesses need water to produce goods, the agriculture sector needs water to produce food, the generation of electricity requires water and so do simple daily tasks such as cooking and cleaning in our homes.

‘So the next time you open a tap, take a shower, run a bath, water your garden, wash your car or do your washing, spare a thought about what a scarce resource water is,’ Jacobs said.

At the launch of National Water Week, Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa said South Africa is in the undesirable position of being one of the 30 driest countries in the world, with below world average rainfall.

‘We have to and must conserve this resource even more that what everyone else can and does,’ said Molewa.