Use less.
Make it last.
Cape Town's six dams are sitting at 47.3% of capacity right now. In 2018 they nearly hit 13.5% — the line below which Day Zero would have been called. The reason we never queued at standpipes is that a million households cut their use roughly in half. The same habits still apply.
This page is a plain-English playbook of what actually works at home, plus a Water Detectives section for kids and classrooms.
Per person, per day. That's the City's normal-times target — enough to drink, cook, wash, and run a tidy household.
Per person, per day. The 2018 emergency limit. A 90-second shower, two flushes, drinking water, hand-washing, and one load of dishes — and you're done.
Per person, per day. The national average. More than twice the City's target — and the reason small habits add up to a lot.
Take a 2-minute shower
A standard shower head delivers around 9 L/minute. Cutting from a 7-minute shower to 2 minutes saves about 45 L per person, per day.
Fix the dripping tap
A slow drip wastes around 30 L every 24 hours. A faster leak inside a wall or under a slab can run into thousands. Read your meter before bed and again at sunrise — if it changed, you have a leak.
If it's yellow, let it mellow
A modern dual-flush toilet uses 6–9 L on a full flush. Skipping a flush a few times a day is the easiest single change in any home.
Stop hosing — sweep instead
A garden hose pumps 15–20 L every minute. A broom and a small bucket of water clean a driveway, stoep or paving just as well.
Only wash full loads
A washing machine uses roughly the same water for a half-load as a full one. Wait until the basket is full before pressing start.
Cover the pool
An uncovered pool in a Cape Town summer loses water to evaporation faster than it loses it to swimmers. A simple cover halves that.
Where most home water is used.
- ·Switch to a low-flow shower head (look for ≤ 7 L/min — the City sells subsidised units).
- ·Put a 2-litre bottle full of water inside the toilet cistern to displace volume on every flush.
- ·Turn the tap off while brushing teeth, shaving, or lathering hands.
- ·Catch the cold water that runs before the shower warms up — use it for plants or the toilet cistern.
Small habits, daily savings.
- ·Scrape plates instead of pre-rinsing — modern dishwashers handle the rest.
- ·Run the dishwasher only when full; eco-mode uses 30–40% less water.
- ·Defrost food in the fridge overnight, not under a running tap.
- ·Keep a jug of water in the fridge so you don't run the tap waiting for it to cool.
The biggest single load — and the easiest to cut.
- ·Plant indigenous, water-wise species: fynbos, spekboom, restios, succulents.
- ·Mulch beds with bark or straw — cuts evaporation by up to 70%.
- ·Water before 09:00 or after 18:00 only; never in the middle of the day.
- ·Install a 2,500–5,000 L rainwater tank under a downpipe — Cape Town's winter rains will fill it.
- ·Direct washing-machine greywater to the garden (use plant-safe detergents).
Cape Town households lose an estimated 10–15% of water to leaks they don't know about. A two-minute test will tell you if you have one.
- Step 1Just before bed, write down the reading on your water meter (the digits on the dial outside).
- Step 2Don't flush, don't run a tap, don't run any appliance overnight.
- Step 3First thing in the morning, read the meter again. If the number changed — even slightly — you have a leak. Call a plumber, or report it to the City for a free leak repair under their indigent programme.
A 5,000 L tank fed from a single downpipe will catch most of what falls on a typical Cape Town roof in a winter month. Use it for the garden, the toilet cistern, or — with a filter and pump — the washing machine.
Bath, shower, and washing-machine water can be diverted to the garden with a simple gravity system. Don't store it more than 24 hours, and use plant-friendly soaps and detergents.
If you have one, register it with the City and post the required signage. Boreholes draw on the same aquifers the City taps for the New Water Programme — over-extraction in summer drops the water table for everyone.
When you next replace a toilet, look for one rated 4.5/3 L dual-flush or better. Aerators on kitchen and basin taps cost a few rand and cut flow by 30–50% with no loss of pressure.
Cape Town has a job for you.
Every drop that comes out of the tap started life as rain that landed in the mountains and slid down into a dam. There's only so much. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to help your home use less of it.
The Dripping Tap Hunt
Walk through your home and listen at every tap. Drip-drip? Tell a grown-up which one — they can fix it.
One slow drip wastes enough water in a week to fill a bucket. A whole month of dripping fills a bath.
The 2-Minute Shower Challenge
Pick a song that's about 2 minutes long. Try to be done before it ends. Can you do it three days in a row?
Every minute you're in the shower, about 9 litres go down the drain. That's a big watering can — every single minute.
The Bucket in the Shower
Put a bucket at your feet next time you shower. Use the water you collect to flush the toilet or water a plant.
A medium bucket holds around 10 litres. Pouring it into the toilet cistern means the next flush is free.
Tap Off, Teeth On
When you brush your teeth, turn the tap OFF the whole time. Only turn it on to rinse.
A running tap pours out about 6 litres a minute. Brushing for 2 minutes with the tap on wastes 12 litres — twice a day.
The Plant Spy
Look at the plants in your garden. Which ones look happy without much water? Those are the ones we want more of.
Cape Town has plants like spekboom and fynbos that thrive on almost no water. A lawn drinks 10× more than a fynbos bed of the same size.
Where does Cape Town's water come from?
Mostly from six big dams in the mountains around the city. When it rains in winter, the dams fill up. In summer it barely rains, so we have to make the water last.
What was Day Zero?
In 2018 Cape Town nearly ran out of water. The plan was for everyone to queue at taps for 25 litres a day each. People saved so hard the dams recovered — and the taps stayed on.
How much water does one person need?
You can't live without about 2 litres of drinking water a day. To wash, cook, and clean too, the City asks each of us to use under 105 litres a day. During Day Zero the limit was 50.
Why does saving water matter when it rains?
Even in a wet year, the city keeps growing — more people means more taps. Saving water now means we don't have to build expensive new systems, or run out again.
That's a swimming pool's worth — every single month — from one classroom. Imagine if every classroom in Cape Town did it.
The combined storage today — 47.3% — only tells you part of the story. Cape Town's population is growing about 1.5% a year, summers are getting longer, and the system was built with assumptions that no longer hold.
Personal saving isn't going to fix climate change. But it kept the taps on in 2018 when nothing else could, and it's the single thing every household has direct control over. Even in a wet winter, less wasted water means more in the dam for the dry year that always follows.
Litre estimates are drawn from City of Cape Town water-restriction communications (Levels 1–6B, 2017–2018), the City's Think Water campaign, and South African National Standard SANS 1808 for plumbing fittings. The 2018 Day Zero figures and the 50 L/person/day emergency limit are City of Cape Town official figures.