Water Scarcity
The way that mankind uses water has not changed much since the days of the Romans. We expect that it will rain, and this rain will fill up lakes, dams and reservoirs and that rivers will keep on flowing. We also expect that boreholes will continue to provide water. We then pump this water to water-treatment-works and from there to our cities and towns.
However, with population growth, pollution and climate change, these assumptions are no longer valid, and we are witnessing droughts, rivers and dams drying up and water levels dropping. Even though we live on the Blue Planet, the amount of fresh water that is available for human consumption is limited.
In South and Southern Africa, we are particularly vulnerable as we live in a water-stressed part of the world and are being impacted by climate change. We have come close to Day Zero in Cape Town and Gqeberha and we are experiencing no water, sometimes for days on end, in many municipal areas in South Africa. More recently, we have witnessed outbreaks of Cholera in certain parts of South Africa.
In recent decades, the use of bottled water has increased exponentially. However, water in plastic bottles can be contaminated by BPA and PET leakage into the water and micro-plastics. Plastic bottles contribute to the increasing plastic waste pollution problem.
