Save yourself by saving water.

In an age of awareness, where people are finally recognising the mistakes made in the past, we have to ask ourselves how we can do better? Gone are the days of buying plastic bags at the grocery store and recycling has become an integral part of our daily lives.

We also started asking ourselves the hard questions in the water industry because for us, the environment hits home harder than in most other industries.

In an article I found online, Brendon Reynolds of the Institute of Plumbing South Africa, made the following very worrying, but true, statement. “What is in demand are properly skilled and qualified plumbers. Statistics in 2018 indicated that about 120000 untrained people in South Africa called themselves plumbers, but only around 20 000 were qualified, and that is a problem,” 20 Apr 2023

Humans tend to have an "ignorance is bliss" response to the looming water problems being experienced all over the world. We only start saving water when the local municipality or government tells us to do it, or when it affects our pockets.

Will knowing that only 16% of plumbers in this country are qualified have any effect on how we decide who to call when we have an emergency? Probably not. Most South Africans live below the bread line and they will only be influenced by cost.

But do people realise that bad plumbing can cause serious health problems?

When a leaking pipe occurs and the pressure drops, the water surrounding the leaking area can sometimes be sucked into the pipe.

This means that potentially harmful groundwater can get into the system and, therefore, contaminate our drinking water. These contaminants include viruses and bacteria from faeces.

There are many things that can cause a water pipe to start leaking including corrosion, water pressure that is too high, rapid temperature changes and foundation shifts to name a few.

We need to start looking after our water pipes. They transport a very scarce resource needed for all life on our planet, very similar to the veins in our bodies that carries our precious blood.

Please make contact with a qualified plumbing company if you suspect you might have a water leak. There are highly sophisticated pieces of equipment on the market these days to detect water leaks. Please make use of the technology available to save the water and yourself.