Updated: Mar 22, 2018
Cape Town resident Kirsty Alberts washes her family's bed linen once every two weeks and toilets at home are only flushed once or twice a day, when absolutely necessary. Carla dos Santos limits herself to two minutes under the shower and her garden has turned brittle and brown because it can no longer be watered. Robbie Webb's gym collects run-off from the showers to flush the toilets and a dip in the pool is a thing of the past.
This, to the people of Cape Town, is the "new normal" as the city at the very southern tip of the African continent grapples with a three-year drought that has triggered the most severe water crisis in living memory.
According to local officials1, the reservoirs that feed the city's approximately 433,000 residents were down to 25 percent of their capacity as of February 2018 and, if water levels continue to decline, then taps in the modern metropolis could run dry as early as August.2
"It is hard to remember when we first became aware of the water crisis and began to change our behavior," said Alberts, 34, who studies at Stellenbosch University and lives in the Cape Town suburb of Blouberg. Even though her family has modified its water consumption "dramatically," Alberts says the situation is "dire."
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