43% of schools had unsafe drinking water, project reveals

IN A startling revelation, results from the Water Warrior School Water Quality Testing Project conducted by pupils in schools across the country have revealed that a staggering 43% of school water samples tested were found to be unsafe for drinking.

- KAREN SINGH

Launched during World Water Month in March, the project was led by the environmental organisation Water Community Action Network (Water-CAN) in partnership with Adopt-a-River and the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (Wessa), among others.

WaterCAN said the project empowered 95 schools across 8 provinces to test the quality of their water supplies, ranging from taps and tanks to rivers.

The organisation said pupils used citizen science kits developed by iLAB and pupils and teachers were trained to test, interpret, and upload their findings via the MapMyWater platform.

The report released this week stated that of the 54 schools that successfully uploaded results, 23 samples (43%) were contaminated, mostly due to unsafe bacteria.

Additionally, 73% of tested water tanks were found to contain harmful bacteria, and several tap water and river samples also raised red flags. The majority of results were from schools in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, and Gauteng.