Danville enviro fundis fight for the conservation of water

“IN the future, there will be a war for water resources. That’s if we don’t start conserving our water right now,” said Zukanye Sihloke, a pupil at Danville Girl’s High School.

Sihloke and fellow pupils of the school’s environmental society recently won the South African Water Explorer initiative. The passionate environmental fundis battled against 120 national schools for the prestigious title.

During the nail-biting finale earlier this month, the judges were tasked with grading the presentations of the top five schools.

In the end, however, the Danville pack dominated the competition – earning their school R15 000 to fund its environmental initiatives and participation in the international competition.

The award follows months of hard work as the whole school immersed itself in a wide variety of activities and challenges to create awareness and change the way water is used – ranging from the ‘Pump it Up’ challenge, tackled by Grade 8 technology students, who designed innovative solutions for running water in rural communities; and a fashion show involving the design of couture fashioned from waste material.

Many of the initiatives focused particularly on creating awareness about ‘secret water’, as the girls learned that only five per of the water used by the public comes through the tap. Ninety-five per cent is hidden in the production of food, clothes and products that are used daily.

In the last 12 months Danville has achieved other provincial and national environmental accolades:
– They were joint national winners in the prestigious Eco-Schools Green Business Award with their innovative OMG (Originally Made Green) business initiative which sold recycled material.
– They were provincial winners (for KZN) of the SAIIA (SA Institute of International Affairs) Youth Leaders Conference in Johannesburg for the second year in a row
– They achieved their international Eco-Schools Diamond Decade Award for 10 years of ‘meaningful environmental management’.

The Danville girls have made some heart-felt pledges to save on ‘secret water’, and urged the public to follow suit:
– Drinking tea instead of coffee
– Buying one less pair of jeans a year
– Buying clothes from second hand vintage stores/swap clothes
– Repairing devices like cell phones and appliances instead of buying new ones
– Buying only what one needs
– Recycling paper
– Eating less chocolate (this was a tough one)

Secret water:
– The United Stated use 1 to 2 billion gallons of water to refine nearly 800 million gallons of petroleum
– To produce a single loaf loaf of bread a baker requires about 480 litres of water
– Similarly 2 273 litres of water is needed to produce a single pound (0.5kg) of cheese
– A simple cheese sandwich requires the use of 211 litres of water
– A small bag of potato chips at uses 45 litres of water
– The production of a can of softdrink requires 174 litres of water
– The production of 0.5kg of beef uses 6 810 litres of water
– For a single glass of wine 240 litres of water is used
– 30 litres of water is hidden in a cup of tea compared to 130 litres in a cup of coffee
– 10 850 litres of secret water is used in the production of a pair of jeans
– 10 litres of water is needed to make 1 sheet
– 17 000 litres of water embedded in 1kg of chocolate

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