How Seminary Tackles Cape Town’s Water Crisis!

Watering the lawns of St Francis Orientation Seminary in Cape Town with grey water from dishwashing are seminarians (from left) Tebogo from Kimberley, Qetelo from Aliwal North, Kwanele from Mariannhill, Bonginkosi from Dundee, and Lavela from Mthatha.
By Charles Dlamini – Seminarians from provinces around South Africa at St Francis Orientation Seminary are getting used to life in drought-stricken Cape Town.
Staff and students are rationed to three showers a week, two after afternoon manual labour and one on Sunday morning. Each day they use grey water from the washing up to keep the garden alive.
Clothes and bedding are washed only every two weeks, and seminarians and staff use groundwater to flush toilets. This has to be pumped up to the bathrooms from the wellpoints and then poured manually into the cisterns.
The water-saving strategy was planned by staff and seminarians are putting it into practice with efficiency.
The seminary has got close to the daily per capita municipal water consumption of 50 litres requested by the city and provincial authorities.
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