Water conservation honour for school

A KWAZULU-NATAL school has won R10 000 and first place in a national water conservation initiative, and will send a team to represent the country at an international contest in London next month.

Pietermartizburg’s Scottsville Primary School was named the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa’s (Wessa) top school in its Water Explorer Programme in Durban on Friday.

The other finalists were: Manor Gardens Primary, Durban; Hawkstone Primary, Karkloof; Glenridge Preprimary, Durban; St Peter’s Girls’ Primary, Johannesburg, which each received prizes of R5 000.

The finalists, picked from the more than 250 particpating schools, made presentations to a panel of experts at a function at the Durban Botanic Gardens.

The programme aims to encourage schools to better manage their water resources.

Scottsville Primary got the judges’ nod because of its “phenomenal” efforts.

The school has set up a comprehensive recycling programme which includes using “grey water” in their gardens and to flush toilets.

They also collected 14 000 litres of water for recycling and replaced leaky pipes which helped slash their water bills.

A team of three from the school will travel to London late next month to compete for international honours.

For more details about the programme, see www.waterexplorer.org

PICTURE: SIBUSISO NDLOVU Scottsville Primary School pupils, from left, Hana Jeremiah, Kaiden Subiah, Gabrielle Hollenberg, Alicia Naidoo, Amone Stieger, Joshua Pillay, and, at the rear, Bethlehem Shimelis and Preshaine Singaram celebrate after their school was named tops in a...