Durban’s eThekwini Municipality to chop home water supplies with new ‘restrictor’ gadgets

Late last year, the uMngeni-uThukela Water utility group instructed the City to chop water use by 8.4% a day for the next 12 months, citing concern from the national Department of Water and Sanitation about the growing volume of water going to waste in Durban.

However, uMngeni-uThukela confirmed last week that Durban was nowhere near achieving the necessary savings and had only reduced water consumption by about 15% of the total (8.5%) daily reduction target over the past few months.

Now Durban has announced plans to install around 550,000 restriction devices on consumer meters in the city, starting in the southern part of the city “due to the escalating demand in that region which outpaces available water supply”.

Announcing the new curbs in a statement on 18 February 2025, eThekwini said the new measure was taken “as part of continuous efforts to reduce the increase in water demand and to enforce water conservation”.

Similar measures were taken during the crippling 2016 drought in KwaZulu-Natal, when almost half a million restrictors were installed in metering devices across the city.

The restrictors are small metal discs with a narrow diameter hole drilled through the centre, to reduce the volume of water entering households via city reticulation pipes at street level.

Ineffective

In 2016, water meters fitted with the restrictors were also spray-painted to mark out which devices had been altered. However, it remains unclear whether those restrictor washers were ever removed, or whether they have become ineffective due to corrosion and water pressure over the past eight years.

At the time, city officials said they had opted for the water restrictor route rather than a rationing system where water supply is cut off at certain times of the day.,

One of the problems with switching water supply off and on frequently is the risk of more mainline pipeline bursts due to sudden water pressure changes.

While the restrictor devices are expected to reduce the total volume of water used by households and companies, concern is growing that eThekwini appears to have opted for one of the quickest and cheapest routes — rather than tackling the root causes of the water crisis: namely leaking municipal pipelines.

Over the past decade or so, “non-revenue water” consumption in Durban has rocketed from about 33% to reach up to 56% in some parts of the city.

Of this, the City acknowledges that about 40% is lost through burst or leaking pipes, and a further 10% from theft or non-payment, suggesting that these are the issues that need to be tackled as a priority.

However, due to years of underfunding, the maintenance and replacement of pipes has been neglected, leading to a snowballing leak crisis that will require billions of rand to repair.

Two splodges of spray-paint indicate one of the many Durban water meters fitted with restriction washers during the 2016 drought. (Photo: Tony Carnie)