In This Article
30-Second Summary
Headline Links: Water purification processes in Africa
Audio & Video: The impact of clean water on health and education
Background: The history of the clay filter and how it works
Key Players: The Rehydration Project and Potters for Peace
Related Topics: Other water filtration methods
Reference: Cholera and Guinea Worm
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Cathal McNaughton-pa/AP
A young boy watches as water is pumped
in Springbokpan, in the North West
Province, South Africa. (AP)
A young boy watches as water is pumped
in Springbokpan, in the North West
Province, South Africa. (AP)
New Tools Emerge in Global Fight for Clean Water
July 31, 2008 06:02 AM
Clay filters, chlorine products and hygiene programs aim to stop the spread of waterborne illness for billions of people without access to clean water.
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For more than a billion people around the world, finding clean water is a daily concern. Though some technological advances have been made, not all have proven practical. Now, some say a simple clay filter may be the one of the most effective tools.
In Cameroon and Ghana, clay water filters, first produced en masse in 1998 to help victims of hurricanes in Central America, were used to curb the spread of cholera and Guinea Worm.
The discovery of the simple, but successful filtration system could have a major impact on the global water sanitation problem.
“Every 20 seconds a child dies as a result of the abysmal sanitation conditions endured by some 2.6 billion people globally,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said. In Angola this year, 198 people died in five months from cholera. Diarrhea kills 2.2 million children under the age of five each year. Dysentery, parasites, and other water-borne diseases are also caused by unclean water.
Aid groups are still looking to find the most affordable and adaptable solutions. The clay water filters, while helpful in preventing many diseases, can’t remove arsenic, which is prevalent in East India and other places. Other technologies like Lifestraw—a straw that purifies water as it is drunk—aren’t effective for cleaning large quantities of water.
Educating people on proper hygiene is also a vital part of the equation, as people often dip dirty buckets into clean water tanks.
In Cameroon and Ghana, clay water filters, first produced en masse in 1998 to help victims of hurricanes in Central America, were used to curb the spread of cholera and Guinea Worm.
The discovery of the simple, but successful filtration system could have a major impact on the global water sanitation problem.
“Every 20 seconds a child dies as a result of the abysmal sanitation conditions endured by some 2.6 billion people globally,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said. In Angola this year, 198 people died in five months from cholera. Diarrhea kills 2.2 million children under the age of five each year. Dysentery, parasites, and other water-borne diseases are also caused by unclean water.
Aid groups are still looking to find the most affordable and adaptable solutions. The clay water filters, while helpful in preventing many diseases, can’t remove arsenic, which is prevalent in East India and other places. Other technologies like Lifestraw—a straw that purifies water as it is drunk—aren’t effective for cleaning large quantities of water.
Educating people on proper hygiene is also a vital part of the equation, as people often dip dirty buckets into clean water tanks.
Headline Links: Water purification processes in Africa
The European Commission Directorate for Humanitarian Aid (ECHO), is working to prevent the spread of Guinea Worm in Ghana. ECHO has provided 5,000 ceramic filters, as well as insecticide treated beds, antimalarial pills, and water purification tablets.
Source: Public Agenda
Six-year-old Vivia Paulina is one of nearly 8,000 people in Angola to fall sick from cholera this year. After her illness, she and her family were taught by UNICEF agents to use a chlorine product that makes water safe to drink after a half-hour wait.
Source: IPS
Nonprofits Global Challenge Network and Ashoka Changemakers created a contest for the best ideas on sanitation and clean water development. The contests winners were announced this May and given a $1 million grant from Coca-Cola to implement their practices.
Source: Changemakers.net
Audio & Video: The impact of clean water on health and education
In 2007, there were 150 cases of cholera in Bafoussam, West Cameroon. Water management officer Bodern Ngega Ndomo says sewage from a prison flows directly into the river that supplies water to villagers. Affordable clay water filters have been provided by aid groups in the hope of keeping the disease in check.
Source: Africa News
NPR’s Talk of the Nation conducted a panel on clean water shortages the day before World Water Day, March 22. Paul Faeth, executive director of the Global Water Coalition discusses behavioral solutions to the water crisis.
Source: NPR
Background: The history of the clay filter and how it works
In 1998, the clay filter was first produced en masse by the aid group Potters for Peace to help hurricane victims in Central America. Integrated Regional Information Networks estimates that more than “30,000 beneficiaries in Central America, West Africa and South and Southeast Asia now use the filter.” In 2007, the American Red Cross distributed 10,000 clay filters to victims of the tsunami in Sri Lanka.
Source: IRIN
A report from the Practica Foundation, an organization that promotes research in water and energy, explains how the clay filter operates: “The mixture of clay and organic material is pressed into shape and fired, leaving a very fine pore structure that blocks bacteria while allowing water to seep through.”
Source: Practica Foundation
Key Players: The Rehydration Project and Potters for Peace
The Rehydration Project teaches medical workers and parents how breastfeeding, measles immunizations, latrines, and proper hygiene can help stop children from getting acute diarrhea, which is deadly in many parts of the world. The Project also raises awareness about Oral Rehydration Therapy, a solution that replenishes the body’s lost salt and water.
Source: The Rehydration Project
Potters for Peace, one of the first aid groups to develop clay water filters, views clean water as a weapon against gender inequality and indigence. The group’s Web site reports, “Women and children, especially girls, bear the burden of time spent collecting and transporting water, meaning less time available for activities such as school, essential to escaping the trap of extreme poverty.”
Source: Potters for Peace
Related Topics: Other water filtration methods
Trevor Field, a social entrepreneur and former advertising executive, saw South African villagers, usually women, spending hours of their day lugging 40-pound buckets of water from contaminated pumps. He developed the play pump, a sort of merry-go-round that spins, helping bring water to places that need it.
Source: PBS
The Lifestraw, created by Danish developer Torben Vestergaard Frandsen eliminates germs within seconds. Unfortunately it isn’t as practical for purifying large amounts of water.
Source: The BBC
Reference: Cholera and Guinea Worm
Cholera is an intestinal disease that is passed around “by the fecal–oral route: infection spreads through a population when feces containing the bacterium contaminate water that is then ingested by individuals,” according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Source: Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica explains how Guinea Worm is transmitted: “The human being becomes infected when he drinks water containing the barely visible flealike crustacean containing the worm larvae.”
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica
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