With the city of Cape Town already at Level 4b water restrictions, it’s more crucial than ever to preserve every drop of water possible in our daily lives. Friends Dylon Burgess, Trevor Maasdorp and Wesley Miller have made saving water in our homes that much easier with the development of the ‘Flush Buddy’.
The Kuils River trio’s product design works in a similar way to that of placing a brick in the toilet cistern in order to save water – and it could also potentially save the city between 40 and 60 million litres of water a day.
The group of friends have approached the City of Cape Town to present their solution and they say the response is looking promising.
‘After realising first hand the impact of the drought by visiting some of our dams, including the Theewaterskloof Dam, a key source of water for our city, we decided to approach the City of Cape Town,’ says Maasdrop. The City has been very responsive and continues to keep us up to date with its efforts during this time.’
Miller says they have also launched a crowdfunding initiative and are calling on the public and corporates to pledge their support for the product.
The Flush Buddy is made of strong and durable materials that, unlike the bottle and brick solutions, saves a minimum of two litres of water per flush. He says the product also doesn’t build up any algae and does not disintegrate or float in your cistern.
‘We took months to develop it as we sourced products for testing purposes and had three key factors to consider: how easy the product would be for consumers to use, how effective it was and affordability. Once we found the water displacement unit, we contacted our manufacturing agents to adapt the product for the South African market,’ Maasdorp says.
Burgess says a big retailer who sells wholesale products may soon start selling the Flush Buddy in their stores. ‘But to meet minimum order demands with our manufacturing agent, we can only roll out this initiative through a crowdfunding platform to the public.’
You can support the initiative and help fund the Flush Buddy project here. Each donation will receive a pack of Flush Buddies, according to how much is donated.
Photography Tyger Burger, Thundafund