- 844 million people in the world don’t have clean water.
- 3 billion people don't have a decent toilet.
- 31% of schools don’t have clean water.
- Every minute a new-born dies from infection caused by lack of safe water and an unclean environment.
- Diarrhoea caused by dirty water and poor toilets kills a child under 5 every 2 minutes.
- Around the world up to 443 million school days are lost every year because of water-related illnesses.
- If everyone everywhere had clean water, the number of diarrhoeal deaths would be cut by a third.
Let’s think about this for a minute;
844 million people don’t have clean water;
That’s more than the population of Britain, America, France, Germany, Australia, Spain and Italy combined.
These numbers are astonishing and only set to rise. Supplies are now running dry – at an alarming rate. The world’s population continues to soar but that rise in numbers has not been matched by an accompanying increase in supplies of fresh water.
What is being done about the water crisis?
Charities and organisations work with communities to build low-cost, sustainable solutions that meet their needs. However many countries’ economies are so poor that they simply cannot afford to build a water infrastructure.
Emergency situations; how is water made safe to drink?
Building water and toilet infrastructures also take time so short term solutions are initially put in place;
Boiling
Boiling water will kill most diseases however some pathogens are ‘stronger’ than others, meaning that higher temperatures are needed to make sure they are all completely eradicated. Boiling is an effective, short term solution however this method doesn’t leave any residual protection.
Filtration (Pump filters)
Filtering water with a commercially built ceramic filter will remove a large number of bacteria such as Cryptosporidium and Giardia lamblia from dirty water however; additional treatments such as UVA or chemicals) are needed to remove the remaining viruses.
Chemical disinfection
Sodium dichloroisocyanurate or Troclosene Sodium more commonly shortened as NaDCC, is a form of chlorine used for disinfection.
It is used by all major NGO's such as UNICEF to treat water in emergencies, and widely by social marketing organisations for household water treatment where household sources of water may not be safe.
How can ESOL™ electrolyzed water help?
Since 2013, Bridge Biotechnology have worked in collaboration with Portsmouth Aviation and the University of the West of England to develop a compact and portable water purification system capable of delivering clean drinking water at source.
Initially this system was trialled in a lab based setting first at the University of the West of England and was independently tested and validated by:
- UK’s Health Protection Agency,
- University of the West of England (UWE)
- Wessex Water Laboratories
The outcome of all the rigorous testing resulted in the mobile water purification systems meeting the Drinking Water Institute (DWI) and World Health Organisation (WHO) standards.
Safe, environmentally friendly water disinfection and purification without the need for harsh chemicals
During the trial period this was demonstrated here in Scotland using dirty pond water........
ESOL™ electrolyzed water is a key component of this system and serves two purposes:
- To keep the ultrafiltration membrane within the system completely free from contamination (bio-fouling)
- To disinfect the final water product, replacing Chlorine
- Provide a residual kill protecting the water from pathogens reforming after disinfection.
The water purification system has now been commercially scaled up and is fitted into standard 20ft and 40ft containers making each unit easy to transport by road, ship or train.
This is science for the real world addressing urgent problems through positive partnership working. The work being conducted by Darren's team and our partners, Portsmouth Aviation, Pentair and Bridge Biotechnology is world class."
- Professor Steve West, UWE Vice-Chancellor
Do you have a need for a safe, environmentally friendly water purification solution?
Sources: (WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) Report 2017) (UNICEF, Advancing WASH in Schools Monitoring, 2015) (WHO, 2015) (WASHWatch.org) (Human Development Report, 2006) (Tropical Medicine and International Health, 2014)
