Wrybill award for two Timaru students
Two 13-year old students from Mountainview High School in Timaru are this year’s winners of Environment Canterbury’s
coveted Wrybill award. The award for resource management is awarded yearly to one of the section winners of science
fairs across the region.
This year Matthew Linton and Tymon Bernard, who won the senior section of the Central South Island Sanford Science and
Technology fair in Timaru, received the Wrybill award for their research on the financial implications of dripping taps.
The results came as a shock.
“Our calculations of three different drip rates showed that it could be costing residents of Timaru city alone, more
than $700,000 a year in wasted electricity,” Tymon explains.
Matthew says it would be far cheaper to get in a plumber to fix a dripping tap. “One hot water tap dripping just two
drips per second wastes water that would have cost about $350 to heat in a year. And our research shows that close to 50
percent of all households in Timaru have taps dripping to various degrees.
Wrybill award judge, Dr Jon Hickford from Lincoln University, says although previous research has been done on the
amount of water wasted through dripping taps, the significance of the two boys’ research lies in the fact that they have
calculated it in terms of electricity cost.
The award, announced at this week’s ECan council meeting, will be formally presented by Climate Change Minister David
Parker at the Resource Management Awards at Christchurch Town Hall, midday, Wednesday, November 1.
Ends