Simple miracle device saves lives

pO157.

Posted to SciTech on Thu Jun 14, 2007 at 05:35:37 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

"You have to suck pretty hard at first to get it moist, but after that it's easy," said 35-year-old Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen.

Mr. Frandsen, CEO of Vestergaard Frandsen S.A., which produces health products to protect residents of the 3rd world is beaming about his new product, the LifeStraw. While the bulk of his business is in selling anti-malarial nets to endemic areas his pride and joy is an invention which basically consists of a long tube with increasingly smaller filter pores allow dirty contaminated water to pass through but block bac teria and pa r as ite s from being ingested by the user. At a cost of $3 per unit, the device is cheap and easily deployable by world healthcare agencies, including the Carter Center -- a major partner of Vestergaard Frandsen S.A. They were first rolled out in 2005 in response to an earthquake in Kashmir. By allowing people in areas with no hope of getting expensive water treatment hookups to use these straws they give them the ability to drink microbiologically unsafe water with a lesser degree of risk, thus potentially saving the lives of hundreds of thousands.

Ironically, the straws are relatively ineffective against Giardia lamblia, a common protozoan infection which sickens hikers and campers around North America who drink contaminated water. So while this device may be a Godsend to those in the third world, it is relatively useless for recreational users in the industrialized west.

(Warning: The links and images contained in the words "bacteria" and "parasites" may contain images that are graphic and or disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.)

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Tags: edited by Port1080, written by pO157, Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, LifeStraw, Africa, Famine, Plague, Parasites, Giardia lamblia, cholera, disease, illness, science, world hunger, charity, Carter Center, Bacteria, virus (all tags)

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1	Water Consciousness javabeanboy. Thu Jun 14, 2007 at 10:03:02 PM EST 3.50 (interesting, informative)

I watched the Newsweek video there, I thought it was strange, taking 5 minutes to sell a 30 second idea. Having spent 6 mo. in the front/back country of Alaska, I have a basic appreciation of what it takes to purify water day in and day out - lots of propane and lots of pumping an MSR-Filter device. Some of the guys were a bit macho about it and would drink straight stream water. The rest of us were completely happy to be paranoid "pppussies". To point, we were super-conscious of the risks of drinking unfiltered water. So in watching this, 5 minute spot, I wonder specifically about the educational example in this where the mom boils water and then the kid puts his dirty hands in the water. Just seems strange. Are people that careless? And, how much does such a careless example matter at the microbiological level? I guess that's the nature of thirst. And I suppose that's the beauty of a filter-straw, with a huge ugly logo on the side of it.

2 1	Re: Water Consciousness port1080. Fri Jun 15, 2007 at 07:55:49 AM EST none

I grew up drinking local stream water (which came from springs just a mile or so upstream) and my childhood home has always gotten its water from a natural spring (water pump in the basement is literally connected to a rubber hose that's connected to a sediment filter and then dumped into the middle of the spring). None of us have ever gotten sick from drinking that water or the stream water (nor any dinner guests, as far as we're aware), but a few years ago a distant relative came to visit and took home a gallon of our spring water. He left it sit in his garage for a few weeks, drank it, and ended up with a really bad case of giardia. So, I guess a lot depends on how much resistance you've built up, the current quality of you water source, and how long you've left the gallon jug sitting in your garage.

3 1	Re: Water Consciousness zyxwvutsr. Fri Jun 15, 2007 at 08:02:22 AM EST none

lots of propane and lots of pumping an MSR-Filter device

What was the propane for? If you're using a MSR filter there is no need to boil the water as well.

Some of the guys were a bit macho about it and would drink straight stream water

There's nothing macho about parasitic diarrhea. But I guess some folks have to learn that lesson the hard way.

Are people that careless? And, how much does such a careless example matter at the microbiological level?

Yes, people are that careless. (Or did you forget about the macho guys you know?) Here's the thing, though: the level of contaminants in water sources will vary from day to day, often by several orders of magnitude. And, yes, people are thirsty, or they may want to conserve fuel (or simply not have enough) and so won't bring water to a proper, vigorous boil, or will boil their water but have only dirty containers to put it in, or will do things like let a child stick his hands in purified water.

Even though well-meaning people may have explained how important it is to purify water, and how properly to do it, and how to keep it pure, and whatever other activities they should avoid, someone will inevitably break one or more of those rules. Oftentimes that person will suffer no ill effects because he got lucky. And he'll tell other people: 'that stream is okay' or 'don't waste your fuel for a roiling boil when a slight simmer will do.'

4 3	Re: Water Consciousness WMK. Fri Jun 15, 2007 at 09:17:40 AM EST 4.00 (interesting)

Hmm 3 bucks you say?

For ~3 bucks worth of packaging material/plastic sheeting/recycled-repurposed sheet of glass you could build a primitive solar still. All you would need is some empty space to arrange the components properly in the sun.

If you look at this simple diagram of solar distillation concept you can probably imagine how to make one of these things on your own using common materials (plastic wrap + duct tape + empty plastic bottles (the larger the better)) rather than buy some kind of fancy deluxe solar still from this company. So for 3 bucks worth of duct tape, discarded containers, and plastic wrap/sheeting you could build several small solar stills.

Howzabout you line a shallow mudbrick/clay 'pond' basin/trench with plastic sheeting/black garbage bag plastic (to absorb more solar heat) and then put a 'tent' of clear plastic sheeting over the topwith a small rock in the middle of the tent roof to weigh it down/provide a 'funnel' shape for condensate and place a clean jug/bucket under the rock to collect the purified water. This way you could build solar stills with greater capacity than a bleach bottle or whatever containers were available for 'free' out of the garbage.

Or with scavenged empty plastic bottles you could kill microbe contaminants using solar energy ala the SODIS method.

I just think that saving the hapless people of the third world from contaminated water doesn't have to come in the form of a product manufactured exclusively for that purpose and requiring a charity drive to fund it. Print & distribute multi-language pamphlets with solar purification methods and suggestions on how to construct them from local materials/manufactured remnants that are already junking up the place for a much greater reach and impact for every 3$ spent - you could include 1.00$ worth of plastic sheeting & duct tape with each pamphlet and help 3x as many people (if you doubted they could find tape, garbage bags, soda bottles, or junked car windows or whatever lying around the environment).

Its that 'teach a man to fish and you lose your monopoly on fishing' shibboleth - but its true.

"...when theft and high crime becomes obscenely obvious to even the blindest beer sucking idiot, it is always the Republicans who are in office." -- Joe Bageant

5 4	Re: Water Consciousness zyxwvutsr. Fri Jun 15, 2007 at 11:21:47 AM EST none

If you look at this simple diagram of solar distillation concept you can probably imagine how to make one of these things on your own...

I've done it before, in training, using a poncho and a canteen cup. (Obviously a clear sheet of plastic is more effective than a poncho, but who carries around clear sheets of plastic?) Solar stills are only marginally effective and take a long time to make a tiny amount of water. Better than nothing, but I sure would hate to try to stay alive for long using only a solar still.

6	Re: Simple miracle device saves lives pO157. Sat Jun 16, 2007 at 02:37:44 PM EST none

I hope within the next century hopefully Africa will get it together enough that stability lets infrastructure be built back up. As a lot of these preventable diseases get eradicated and/or reduced due to better care and public health it will be interesting to see how the population takes off. With the natural resources they already have supporting their growth they may be in the lucky position of having too much overcrowding in some areas as opposed to starvation & poverty.

I just hope it works out for them.

7	Saving African Children 3fingerspointback. Sun Jun 17, 2007 at 10:15:34 PM EST none

The LifeStraw sounds pretty cool. I've been donating some of my money to Solar Cookers International, which includes kits to make solar stills as well as cookers. It sounds like solar methods are still more efficient than the LifeStraw, but I'm sure that the LifeStraw has its own uses, esp. when the sun is not so reliable.

But I think the Killer App that we want here is something that can be made available for Africans to make and distribute themselves. A recent fad of design houses is to come up with technologies for water pumps and other low-level techs that can be manufactured and sold by Africans without requiring any input capital from westerners. Solar cookers seem to always require plastic sheeting, which SCI keeps hitting me up to ship in.

(is 3fingerspointback)

8 7	Re: Saving African Children pO157. Sun Jun 17, 2007 at 10:28:43 PM EST none

I like the lifestraw idea, especially since it is portable and so people can still be protected while they flee unrest.

There have been several horrible pathogens which were destroyed almost everywhere in the world yet escaped eradication because some small African backwater couldn't get it together enough to take a break from the wars and allow in aid workers and whatnot, and the refugees then spread the disease out of the last small sliver of infected land to other places.

But, if they would have had the lifestraw earlier it would not have been such an issue.

This story: 8 comments (3 from subqueue)

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Simple miracle device saves lives

pO157.

Posted to SciTech on Thu Jun 14, 2007 at 05:35:37 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

Water Consciousness

javabeanboy.

Thu Jun 14, 2007 at 10:03:02 PM EST

3.50 (interesting, informative)

1

Re: Water Consciousness

port1080.

Fri Jun 15, 2007 at 07:55:49 AM EST

none

1

Re: Water Consciousness

zyxwvutsr.

Fri Jun 15, 2007 at 08:02:22 AM EST

none

3

Re: Water Consciousness

WMK.

Fri Jun 15, 2007 at 09:17:40 AM EST

4.00 (interesting)

4

Re: Water Consciousness

zyxwvutsr.

Fri Jun 15, 2007 at 11:21:47 AM EST

none

Re: Simple miracle device saves lives

pO157.

Sat Jun 16, 2007 at 02:37:44 PM EST

none

Saving African Children

3fingerspointback.

Sun Jun 17, 2007 at 10:15:34 PM EST

none

7

Re: Saving African Children

pO157.

Sun Jun 17, 2007 at 10:28:43 PM EST

none