How I save

Glen Takeloo, Cape Town

‘Most people who share their homes with a teenage boy are in for trouble,’ says Glen Takeloo, communication officer with the City’s Environmental Resource Management (ERM) unit. ‘You know how 17-year-olds like to stand in the hot shower, stay in the hot bath, keep their electronic gadgets ready… This can be bad news for the electricity bill…’

Not in Glen’s household, though.

In 2006 Glen, who used to supervise a group of mechanical operators at Athlone Power Station, was transferred to the ERM office in central Cape Town – just in time to help fight Cape Town’s first serious taste of load shedding.

‘That’s when I learned about energy-efficiency lighting – and my job was to tell everyone else this new information I had. How much money, and electricity you could save. We worked hard at that programme where you could bring in your old, high-energy bulbs and swap them for these energy-efficient ones.’

And to this day, Glen is still practising what he preached, and continuing to ‘preach’ the save-electricity message.

‘It has always been a dream to work in the education and communication field, and environmental education is a worthy cause. So this is the ultimate… to earn a living doing something that is close to my heart.

‘And at home, we’ve got our son so involved in saving electricity – he keeps the records of the bills and the savings we make. So he participates, and that’s the best way of learning.’