Myles Fish (right) at Cascade Enginiering where the plastic filters are produced (IA video)
International (MNN) ― Today is World Water Day, a day set aside by the United Nations to work on solutions to safe drinking water.
Recent reports note that more than 10 million people - half of them children and teens - die annually from diseases due to unsafe drinking water; in developing countries, 70 percent of poor people lack access to treated water. That adds up to at least 1.3 billion people around the world don't have access.
International Aid's Myles Fish says they've just launched their response. "We have gotten the rights to make this technology out of plastic. It only weighs seven pounds and we're able to mass produce them in large volumes. We're excited about it because we think that this new addition of the BioSand water filter is going to enable us to have a far greater distribution that we could have ever had with the cement filter."
International Aid's new filter was developed in collaboration with Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Cascade Engineering. The existing filter, invented by David Manz, Ph.D., of the University of Calgary, Canada, is made of concrete and typically weighs more than 300 pounds.
How does it work? According to International Aid, the BioSand method removes pathogens from water through a combination of biological and mechanical processes. The filter itself comprises a plastic container enclosing layers of sand and gravel, including a surface layer of sand that is infused with bacteria-consuming micro-organisms during the filter's initial preparation.
Water is poured into the top of the filter as needed, where the first, biological layer consumes pathogens before the water travels through the additional layers of sand and gravel. As it collects at the base of the filter, the water is propelled out of the filter through plastic piping attached to the unit's exterior.
International Aid's plastic version of the filter makes it far easier to transport and distribute in rural areas and remote locations. It also makes the filter much more affordable, which means more of them will be used in partnership with existing community health development project partners.
Aside from the distribution of the filters, there are plans for providing education to help communities change their behaviors through improved hygiene instruction and providing prescription drugs to treat waterborne diseases.
In addition, International Aid intends to help create indirect social benefits from its water program by fostering local micro-businesses dedicated to the water filter's ongoing operation and maintenance.
Fish says these projects give credibility to ministry work. "If you have church planters or other kinds of missionaries that go into communities and help address an obvious health issue, like diarrhea, by providing an inexpensive home-based water filter, it gives you that first step in building the kind of relationship that's necessary, so that you've earned the right to be heard when you start talking about who we are in Christ and what Christ means to us."
Click here if you want to help fund the BioSand Water Filter projects.
