People queuing in Cape Town during the 2018 drought.
In 2018, Cape Town in South Africa made global news for its infamous drought, nearly becoming the first major global big city to hit Day 0. That’s basically the day when there is no more running water, the army takes control of water distribution and you need to start fighting for water.
Believe it or not, 7 years later, nothing has changed, people still use water in the same way. The infrastructures are still extremely problematic. The next drought will come back sooner than we think and it will be even drier ! Extreme problems require extreme solutions, it’s time for radical change !
Ageing Wastewater treatment plant in South Africa
Untreated wastewater discharge
The current highly centralized water system model used around the world hasn’t changed much for the past 300 years. Drinking water travels miles in outdated, some over 50 years old underground pipes, you use it for 5 minutes to take a shower, it goes down the drain and travels miles again to be sent directly to seas & rivers for discharge. Globally, around 80% of wastewater is discharged into the environment untreated.
In these pipes, massive amounts of drinking and sewage water are lost due to pipe leaks, increasing water scarcity and the level of soil pollution.
Transporting water also requires a huge amount of electricity, on average, it accounts for 5% of a country’s national electricity consumption ! In California, it’s about 16%.
The two biggest pieces of nonsense might still be flushing the toilet with drinking water and not reusing water more than once when you have just paid for it !
Houses with solar panels in South Africa
Just as solar panels have done for electricity, we want to decentralize the water economy. We are creating a game-changing innovation to enable every house to become 100% water self-sufficient.
You’ll be able to produce your own water right where you live and recycle it to go off-grid.
Ensuring a sustainable future for water depends on our commitment to reuse it.
One day, every single house will have a system like the Drytong to fully control and manage its water to ensure its security and potability.
Like a forest, decentralization is about empowering every tree to thrive independently, creating a stronger, interconnected whole.
We are creating the biggest water forest made of small off-grid water systems.
Let the great water liberation begin…
Just as hundreds of trees create a resilient forest ecosystem, small decentralized water systems will make houses resilient and self-sufficient
