Taking on Third World water (Seattle group with help from Gates Foundation)

[The Roux Comes First]

Glenn Austin ripped open a credit-card-sized packet and dumped its contents into a flask of muddy water. As he swirled the concoction, dirt and debris began to clump and settle to the bottom. Within a few minutes, the water was clear.

He poured it through a paper filter and drank deeply.

The water-purification powder costs 8 cents and can treat almost 3 gallons of water, said Austin, leader of product development for PATH. It's the type of technology the Ballard nonprofit hopes to bring to millions of people in the developing world, where drinking water is often dirtier and more dangerous than the sample Austin collected from a puddle in his North Seattle neighborhood.

Already renowned for its ability to find low-cost, practical solutions to the health problems of the world's poor, PATH is now taking on water quality with a $17 million, five-year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003469254_cleanwater09m.html

Pretty dramatic stuff to be able to swill down muddy puddle water after just a few minutes of treatment! And a hell of a lot more practical than trying to figure out how to make those high-tech filtration units needed to avoid giardia when hiking in the Cascades affordable in the Third World.

[Roland99]

1. Good luck getting past Carlyle and others who are snatching up water rights around the globe.

[amandabeech]

2. There's a simple trick that involves used liter soda bottles.

Fill them with water and let them sit in the hot sun on the roof of the dwelling, so long as it is in a hot climate with good sunlight.

After about 4 days, the sun's UV rays have kill about 98% of the germs, and any solids have headed for the bottom.

Or that's what I read a couple of years ago.

[Lisa]

3. sell the technology in wealthy countries for camping and emergency kits ...

... and use the revenues to help fund the projects overseas?

That's what the Freeplay Foundation (makers of wind-up radios and cell phone chargers) is doing.

I'd buy a package of that -- at way more than the few cents it costs to produce, especially if I knew it was being used to help others. (And if I'd been in Vancouver last month, it would definitely have been handy.)