LifeStraw
Around 20% of the world’s population still lack access to clean drinking water, and around 2 million children die every year because of water-related diseases. It’s an issue that deeply concerns me, and so I was very interested to come across the LifeStraw at the Dubai Humanitarian Aid Conference (DIHAD) a few weeks back. It is a fat blue 12″ plastic tube, through which you can drink from almost any water source, bacteria-free! This is the brainchild of Danish, Dutch, and Israeli designers for the Danish company, Vestergaard Frandsen, being produced in China, and priced at $3.50 (£1.80) a straw. Each one will last for around 700 litres, ie. around six months to a year.
Speaking to their Middle East rep, he explained that even at this cafe-latte price, it isn’t really providing customers with an affordable solution to their problem. We’re talking a few days of earnings for a product that only lasts a year. However, it is giving development agencies in the field a light, practical and cost-effective tool to curb water-related diseases in specific areas. But cost is not the only drawback. Fact is that access to water (at all) is a much bigger problem than access to clean water, which means that people, mostly women and young girls, still need to spend hours travelling to water sources. Critics argue that local water projects are therefore much more effective overall.
Still it’s an interesting intervention in the ongoing water policy debate, and an example of how water privatisation can be taken to the extreme, to the personal level? If you did have a choice to save up and buy a LifeStraw or wait for your local authority to build a well…
Great idea - if you can get these straws into the right hands, you can avoid the systemic failure of large-scale water sanitisation projects in countries where corruption, poor management etc. stymie complex efforts. If they are as effective as you claim, they’ll also be very useful in disaster relief situations as a stop-gap measure to combat the spread of disease until cleaner water can be found again.
I would have thought that the major problem is in making sure that the straws aren’t used beyond 700 litres, or collected and sold as new straws to people when they are past their useful life.
Thanks for the site anyway.
Thanks for your comment. Really good point about customers using the LifeStraw after its short lifespan is over… I wonder if the company have a strategy to deal with that issue!?
hey menka
are you aware of another cheep method of purification that works in sunny areas. once can filter debris out of water with a simple filter (i think this could be a cloth etc…) and then leave the water in a clear container in the sun. There are certain time frames that that can be applied to this technique, and it can be modified by using reflective surfaces. the idea is that UV light sterilizes the water. I do not know the details regarding the amount of time etc. that water must be left out if various conditions, but is is a cheep method that could likely be used a lot more.
There are also small electric devices that create ozone in water, as well as cheep filters, that can be used on a small scale communal basis. The problem is getting systems implemented and making them self sustainable.
t