Trickle effect: cultural water consciousness in Cape Town

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Whose bucket is this? Whose bucket is this?’ We’re trailing behind a municipal policeman making his rounds in downtown Cape Town. The scene is reminiscent of boys being caught smoking behind the bike shed by a teacher, as abashed-looking guys shuffle around trying to hide their illicit car-washing materials. They explain that the water is being caught from the drains and siphoned into a drum; they’re excused and the police get ready to roll on.

From the flood planes to the pine-studded slopes of Table Mountain, Western Cape is in the midst of a severe water shortage. Since 2016, Cape Town has received only 32% of its expected rainfall and is predicted to be in the last 10% of its water supply by 2019. When the ominously styled ‘Day Zero’ arrives, the four million residents of Cape Town will be required to collect daily water rations of 25 litres. In an attempt to offset this impending crisis, the authorities have curbed all extraneous uses of water and set a discretionary ration of 50 litres per person per day.

Cape Town, a city divided during apartheid, has progressed much since those dark days. Yet the major groups, defined in the apartheid era as ‘blacks’, ‘whites’ and ‘coloureds’, still inhabit the same areas allotted to them and, one generation on, maintain the same socioeconomic hierarchy as they did at the end of apartheid. It is unsurprising, then, that people have maintained and developed separate cultural identities. The water shortage, however, presents a new – and commonly shared – pressure.

Driving in convoy through one of the most affluent neighbourhoods in the whole of Africa, you’d be excused for thinking we were in LA, as whitewashed walls enclose us on either side of red pine-lined tarmac. Water shortage and the prevention of water misuse is a real issue, despite the light drizzle of rain that undermines the seriousness of the situation. Eyes peeled, on the look-out for hoses, sprinklers and concrete mixers, it’s serious stuff.  

The convoy grinds to a halt as we chance upon two gardeners labouring outside the 10ft walls of a mansion house. Our police officer-cum-teacher steps out of the car, asking: ‘What’s going on here?’ They explain that they’re pulling up the outdoor irrigation system; it seems some are starting to come to terms with the fact that water is in short supply. It’s a hard pill to swallow, especially as Cape Town seems to be dripping in natural water, with multiple springs scattered across the city, tapping into subterranean channels. It is bewildering to some residents that this would be the first city to face the prospect of ‘Day Zero’. 

You’d expect the least wealthy to feel the brunt of the effects of limited water, but it’s the more affluent areas that are undergoing the most visible cultural shift. While poorer communities have never basked in an abundance of water – many share a single tap between several households –the rich have long been used to luscious gardens and swimming pools. Gardens are now left to go fallow and brown, mud-splattered white 4x4s are driven proudly unwashed around the city, and – most recently – long and hard-to-maintain hair is being replaced with shorter, more water-efficient trims. 

This cultural shift has been brought about by an enduring, publicly sponsored campaign – ‘WaterWise’ – and a collective guilty conscience, to the point that affluent white communities have assumed the sanctimonious behaviour of the repentant serial offender. For the rich white, unapologetic displays of wealth have been displaced by apologetic virtue signalling.

It’s paradoxical that, despite the fact that white communities have not actually run out of water, the potential for them to stick with water-saving behaviours – such as not washing the car – is higher than if they had run out of water. In Cape Town, it has become ‘cool’ to do your bit to save water – an enduring cultural shift. If they had been forced to implement water-saving strategies as a result of running out, you can assume that – as soon as it was in abundance again – they’d revert to their original behaviour, with sparkling cars and blooming gardens.

A comparable instance occurred in the UK during the peak of the financial crisis and recession in 2008. In reaction to a gloomy outlook on national prospects, the middle class adopted budget supermarkets en masse – yet, despite the resurgence of the UK economy, Aldi and Lidl continue to be popular because of the emergence of a nascent value for being ‘in the know’ when it comes to a bargain and the subsequent trend for shopping in discount stores. 

A change in mindset as a motivator for behavioural change has greater potential for longevity than the trigger of the change alone. When water consciousness became ‘cool’ in Cape Town, the new behaviour gained the potential to be longer lasting than a change in behaviour inspired by a direct reaction to the environmental influence.

Peter Lane is research executive at Bamm London