Viable solution to clean drinking water in developing world

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Will keep it short and leave it to people to look at the info themselves if they wish.

A man named Michael Pritchard has designed a filtered water bottle which can filter our all bacteria and virus, leaving safe drinking water.

In terms of cost effectiveness, this is a great way of providing safe drinking water to those who really need it and anywhere in the world, where there is a disaster, instead of people having to gather in camps who provide food, medical care and water, there is a significantly smaller chance of disease being able to spread since people don't need to be stuck in a fixed area.

Here are the facts and here is a video as well which explains it in perfect detail:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LifeSaver_bottle

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Well gonna go to bed which i should have done hours ago.

Would appreciate it if people left feedback on what they think of the Lifesaver bottle whether that is good or bad.

I am not here to promote it for profit but see it as a great idea which could raise the standard of living for many people.

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It is an improvement. I am interested how he made 25 nm pores i.e. what is a material inside.
Bad sides: I don't like that the filter is not self-cleaning and that it cannot clean heavy metals and salts.
Still the amount of water it can filter is great.

It is good as a temporary solution but I would like to see a new filter design besides simple particle packing. Something truly self-sustainable forever maybe just to use some current from photovoltaic to burn off the junk after it is filtered.

To be quite blunt, I think they are a good idea, but I think $160 is more than most countries are willing to spend on a individual third world refugee. I'm not even sure that FEMA would be willing to pay for those for US citizens.

I don't know what materials are used actually.

The UK itself spends around 12 billion pounds a year (or did in the video in 2009 or whatever).

if 20 billion, which could easily be split between a huge number of nations was purchased in one go that is a temporary fix as somebody mentioned which even put many thirsty people in the position where they could take a more active role in building up there own clean water infra structure.

If you happen to know anyone who works with any charities, especially those aimed at poverty please point this out to them so they have the option of making use of this.

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My proposal is to have the people of the developing world stop p*ssing and sh*ting in the bodies of water that are used as drinking water sources. Teach the Miserable of the Earth to dig proper latrines away from aquifers.

ruveyn

Good results have even been had by placing water in clear plastic bottles and leaving them in the sun for a number of hours. The majority of the bacteria are neutralized by this.

would other chemicals be needed to make the heat kill bacteria?

the problem seems to be, not just bacteria, but virus which is smaller.

the lifesaver bottle filters out the smallest virus we know of.

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maybe not as healthy as a lifesaver bottle, but you can;'t argue against a much more cost effective solution.

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what about evaporating/re-condensing the water? It would leave behind the salts, and I imagine it would kill a lot of the bacteria, if it was left in the sun to evaporate.

I find it funny he bases his solution to the world's water problem by claiming the water infrastructure isn't needed if everyone had a unit of his invention in their house (DING! marketing plugin).

For all his being 'upset' and wanting to 'save people' he sure is charging a pretty penny for those bottles.... you'd figure if he was doing it to save lives he would've donated the patent to the UN/UNICEF rather than profit greatly from it.