Airport water drive

THE ANNUAL festive season trek from Joburg to Cape Town is gathering steam, but this year Gautengers will descend on a drought-ravaged city and their presence will put even more strain on the dwindling water supply.

To help raise awareness about the need to use water extremely sparingly in the Cape, on Friday, Gautengers will be encouraged to participate in a social experiment and exchange 5kg of their on-flight baggage allowance for 5 litres of water.

Every year Gautengers go to Cape Town for their holidays.

If you consider that the daily per person water allocation is 87 litres, this places tremendous additional strain on the city.

During a one-day activation at OR Tambo and Cape Town International airports, travellers can participate by having their luggage weighed at the Siemens AirDrop stand.

Any traveller whose luggage is 5kg (or more) under the weight limit will be able to “exchange” their unused kilograms for litres of water that will be delivered to Cape Town on their behalf.

By simply exchanging unused luggage kilos for water, we hope to airlift around 5 000 litres of drinking water to the city in a matter of hours.

The flight route between Joburg and Cape Town is one of the busiest in the world, with over 4.4 million passengers flying it every year.

Many passengers don’t use their full baggage allowance (ranging from 23kg to 32kg, depending on the airline).

Business travellers often only take carry-on luggage, and even some holidaymakers pack light in order to do some shopping down in the Cape.

On arrival in Cape Town, passengers can either collect their guilt-free Jozi water to use during their stay, or they can opt to leave it at the collection point.

Uncollected water will be donated to Gift of the Givers.

The Siemens AirDrop is a good example of how South Africans can do something for fellow citizens. Keshin Govender Head of Communications for Siemens Southern and Eastern Africa