Wear your mask outside your home, its the right thing to do.
Category: <span>News</span>
Bacterial filtering plant – step 1
I work at Old Mutual at Mutualpark in Cape Town. It is a massive campus of several buildings serving about 10 000 people. To provide water for that many people requires about 450 000l water per day; that amounts to about 45l per person total (this is total consumption including the restaurants, kitchens, aircon units etc). So I think it’s a remarkable achievement that they managed to get the entire campus off the water grid by building an onsite world-class water recycling plant.
Storage tanks
The main source of recycling water is waste water from the campus – yes every time you flush or wash your hands the output is recycled into drinking water, and its supplemented with grey water from the city (which then also goes through the filtration system). No city drinking water is needed.
Sand filtering – step 2
I was very lucky to go on a tour of the plant, and its impressive. It is capable of generating up to 800 000l water per day; that is almost double what is required on the campus. The water is super-clean, is tested everyday, and is compliant will the regular legal requirements (SANS 241 to be specific). It is the first privately developed waste water filtration plant in South Africa and can supply water to the campus without any clean municipal water required. None at all!
Reverse osmosis – step 3
Note: I mentioned 3 steps but that is massively simplified; it is a complex multi-step filtration system they use.
So between the solar panels, waste recycling and now water recycling I think they are doing a good job with the environment. And it makes business sense. The water plant will only need a few years to pay for itself. This is what large companies should be doing.
Last year the Cape Town Cycle Tour was cancelled because of dangerously high winds. This year there is not a breath of air. It is perfect conditions for the cycle tour. Since I discovered running I have almost completely stopped cycling, but I still like to walk down to Main Road to support and watch the cyclists. I prefer to wait for the tail-end to come through; they are far more social and relaxed on the road.
Enjoy the pics from Sunday.
While I was on my run a few days ago, I notices something new. Informational signs have popped up on the side of Main Road, from Muizenberg all the way to Kalk Bay. Each board is different and tells a story about the area. The ones that I saw cover the history, architecture of the old buildings, fishing and indigenous people of the area. They are well put together and informative. I’m not sure what are on the other boards (after all I was on a run, not a walk).
Why don’t you pop down to Muizenberg and take a slow stroll to Walk Bay and learn a little more about the area while you enjoy your stroll?
Firstly don’t forget about the giveaway – a free signed Beatles print worth over R280 to a randomly selected commenter.
A few days ago I posted about the Persona Art Project, creating interesting art from bathroom signs.
They kindly offered to create me my own persona, so I sent them a few pictures of me finishing a marathon, and they did! Have a look at what they created. I am surprised at how good the caricature of me is, even down to the artwork of my dragon tattoo, and the iPod shuffle that I was listening to. Ok so the race number is different, but that is the number that I was wearing on another of the pictures. Here is the source pic for comparison.
Anyway, they now have a Kickstarter campaign running, including some cool stuff for participating, including
- prints
- postcards
- images
- and your own persona image
Check it out and please support it if you can (I have bought one of the packs myself). I think that anything so creative and original deserves some backing.
And don’t forget to leave a comment to maybe win the print.
Here is an interesting art project that I came across, and it is all by a Cape Town team. They have taken the traditional “mens” sign found on bathroom doors, and converted it to really funky art, so here are just 2 examples.
There are a bunch more on their Facebook page, including historical people, world leaders, tv and movie persona.
I have been chatting to them, and they have offered to do 2 cool things:
Firstly there is a free signed print of the Beatles picture as a giveaway to one of my readers (Just leave a comment on the blog or on Facebook to enter).
Secondly they are going to create a persona of me which I will post when it is ready.
They are planning on crowd-funding this project at the Design Indaba, so in a few days I will post something about it when I have more details. But it looks like an interesting project worth watching.
Two brothers, Shayne & Ant Vervoort, are launching a Kickstarter campaign on September 22 to promote an exciting new art project coming out of South Africa —Â Persona Art Project.
The aim of this project is to tap into the massive reach that an international platform such as Kickstarter provides. South Africa has just scratched the surface in terms of crowd-funded projects. The Persona Art Project wants to be part of this community of creatives and utilize the process of crowd-funding to build support around grass-roots projects such as this, coming out of South Africa.
The Beatles – Abbey Road
Uma Thurman – Kill Bill
Here is the official video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0UqorB0UQc
I have to do a quick boast; Lois was on the Espresso Show on Friday, talking about disability and her role as a Casual Day ambassador. Casual Day raises both funds and awareness about disability.
You can watch the clip below.
Lois, Jabulile and Simone are interviewed.
Here is the clip:
Yesterday was the Cape Town cycle tour (formally the Argus cycle tour). Normally it is a 109km ride around beautiful Cape Town, but because of the recent fires they took the drastic (and very understandable) decision to shorten it to a 47km ride through Cape town (from the city bowl to the bottom of the M3 and back).
I normally watch the ride form the bottom of my road (I used to ride it myself but have stopped since I discovered running). But today I took a short run to watch the bicycles coming past.
The ride was in solidarity to all the firemen who have bravely spent the past week fighting the fires, so a lot of people were wearing red, and even dressing up as firemen.
Cycle Tour
Cyclist dreased as a fireman
Cape Town has been on fire since Sunday. Currently over 4000 ha of bush has been destroyed, and the fire is still not under control. To make it more difficult, yesterday was the hottest day in Cape Town for 100 years. At least today the cooler weather should help a little.
Last night we had another flare-up on Boyes Drive. Literally in the span of about 10 minutes the mountain went from dark to a flaming inferno. These pics were all taken yesterday afternoon and last night at and around my house.
Note the size of the fire truck in the first picture.
Boyes Drive flare up
Muizenberg Beach with a smokey haze above the sea
A fire chopper flies over my house
Boyes Drive flare up
Boyes Drive flare up
Boyes Drive flare up
The South Yeasters Beer Club (of which I am a member) are hosting a beer festival this Sunday, at the SAB brewery in Newlands. There will be over 40 home-made beers available to sample. So if you want to check out the home-brew scene, or just try some amazing beers pop over for an hour or two. Tickets are R100 (that’s about what you will pay retail for 3 craft beers – you will get to try over 40).
To get you in the mood, here are a few pics from my brewery.
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