So, I’m a total nerd. Every year for Christmas the only gift I request of my husband is to renew my subscription to National Geographic.
While finding clean water to support the population of Sub-Saharan Africa is an ongoing problem, in 2006 Ibelatha Mhelela, the principal at a primary school in Tanzania, implemented a simple solution.
Turns out, even if people live nowhere near a clean source of water, as long as they have plastic bottles they can CREATE clean water. It’s known as the SODIS program. Basically, you peel the label off any plastic water bottle and fill it with standing water, as long as the water isn’t completely brown. Then place the bottle on top of a metal surface (for better heat conductivity) and leave it alone. Within six hours, the UVA radiation will kill parasites, bacteria and other harmful elements in the water, making it safe to drink.
And don’t worry, Snopes assures me that it perfectly safe to drink water from bottles that have been left in the sun.
In unrelated news, some of you may remember that I had been obsessed excited about a new history project I was working on with other members of Cheezburger. Guess what? It’s totally up and running!
Image and Information Courtesy Of: National Geographic.
Favorite Comment: Fixer Dogmeat says, “How fortuitous! While taking a picture of this SODIS device, a National Geographic photographer captured on film a young African sprite in pink garb that was unable to flee fast enough from the camera’s view. These rare creatures cast no shadow. They also move so swiftly and carefully that they seem to never actually touch the ground, thereby leaving no footprints or dust trails as evidence of their visit.”
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cool, I will try checking whit microscope. After and before
That would be a great science project for my grade schooler. Thanks for the idea!
Ugh, too preachy…
Preachy? She’s just describing a solution someone in Africa found to a common problem for people in certain parts of Africa. She didn’t suggest anyone should feel guilty or even do anything about this.
Actually, I sound kind of preachy now. There you go.
Friendly FYI: “Again” is a troll on many of the Cheezeburger network sites.
Hmm. Didn’t sound “preachy” to me at all.
And I think the project’s bloody awesome.
But, you know, just my opinion
That’s totally awesome! But I heard water in plastic bottles is bad for you if you re-use the bottles lots?
Probably not as much as the poisonous water, mind.
I’d rather have water with BPA’s than water with dysentery.
Agreed!
would glass bottles fix the problem, or does it stop the UV getting in?
As long as the glass is clear and (as they said) the water isn’t muddy brown.
Not quite. According to the Wikipedia page on SODIS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SODIS
transparency to UV is an issue, so specific materials are strongly preferred– but fortunately, clear PET (polyethylene terephthalate, typical of two-liter soda bottles) is on the list. And anything over 30 NTU needs to be filtered first– and as you can see from the illustration at the Wikipedia page on turbidity:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbidity
even 50 NTU is hardly “muddy brown”.
Sorry, but glaqss is a rather efficient absorber. Try getting a tan through a window.
It should have read “UV absorber”
You can’t use glass bottles because glass is opaque to UV radiation. That is why you can ride in a car in bright sunlight without getting a sunburn unless you roll the windows down.
The risk from BPA is wholly theoretical in any case. Its based on unproven assumptions that a linear relationship between dosage levels and cancer risk. They assume that if large dosages in a small population causes a lot of cancer then microscopic dosages across hundreds of millions of people will also cause a lot of cancer.
This is almost certainly wrong because (1) in biology/chemistry dosage/concentration massively controls the results of chemical interactions and (2) in the last century we have increased our exposure to artificial compounds such a BPA by a literal factor of billions (9 orders of magnitude) yet cancer rates theoretically attributable to such exposure have remained flat or gone down.
However, keeping hundreds of millions of people in a perpetual state of fear over chemicals has proven very profitable for “activist”, certain corporations and certain politicians.
I heard something about different types of plastic bottle and the plastic leaching is being poisonous, rather than cancerous. However I’m basing this on a poster I read at my university, rather than an actual written source.
The bottles, plastic or glass, need to be transparent in UV. As it turns out, almost all clear plastic ones are at least ok, though some plastics are better than others. I know less about glass, but I think it is harder to get glass bottles that no one is using in the developing world.
It should also be noted that 6hrs is basically under ideal conditions. If it is overcast, or you are in higher latitudes, it can take 4x as long.
Better than no water at all.
i guess if you live there Bpa isnt your worst problem
Bpa=bisphinol a
I’m glad you posted this because I’ve been looking for some info on this method. You might also be interested in solar ovens and their benefits to ecology in third world countires, if you haven’t heard about them already. Here’s a link to a good article on the subject: http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/2679/
Love the site btw, even the “preachy” bits from time to time
Love what you’re doing here! Thanks for the post on the water bottle, and the new historical cheezburger. Maybe we can get a collection together to send over safer bottles. (and I didn’t find this preachy, just v. cool)
Check out biochar while you’re at it, if you don’t know about it already!
Sorry, you’re not allowed to even mention the existence of less privileged people– even when it’s relevant to the site.
They can die, I don’t care. It’s they own fault if they don’t have healthcare and I will actively oppose any attempt at helping them, it may affect me. Poor people suck, that’s what I told the wife when we were going to our Christian church.
What? Not our poor, some other ones? Scratch that then, or maybe not, what’s under their land?
(sorry, crummy week is bad for my sarcasm ratio)
It isn’t helping your grammar, either.
I appreciate your sarcasm Bob, but Steve’s humor even more. *Snicker
We also covered this on AfriGadget some time ago: http://www.afrigadget.com/2009/02/20/a-tribute-to-sodis/
The best resource on this is @ http://www.sodis.ch (as someone already mentioned on the original NG post).
This is very cool!! An epic win!
That’s a very clever solution! I remember reading about how old saris are used in India to filter water, but I never saw the plastic bottle process before today.
Reading this right after watching the news made me happy again
I like how the tiny kid in this pic is about as thin as a toothpick. Reminds me of Starvin Marvin. Sure they have ok drinking water but they still have nothing for food. And by the way I do not feel bad for this post. If I had the power I would turn half the world into a parking lot with a starbucks in the middle. You people don’t know me, you will never know me, and for all you know I could be your best friend but you will never know…
At least they will have clean(ish) water to make the coffee with.
At least your honest unlike all these hypocrite liberals.
his head looks pasted on too
photoshoped?
Anyone else think the image looked like a giant mock up of some kind of over the counter allergy capsules? It was just a first glance but there it was.
Yeah, that will kill anything alive. Not so sure about harmful elements though, if you mean lead, magnesium, etc. which actually are elements and very bad.
But on the biological side, awesome. Great solution. I’m very happy for this.
This is being used on surface water, which usually doesn’t have mineral problems.
Magnesium is actually an essential element to human survival. Lead, not so much.
along with sodium oxide and dihydrogen monocloride
or did i switch something…
It’s a great idea and a huge step in the right direction for a lot of the world…the biggest problem (other than lack of water) is that obviously this won’t do much to chemically tainted water, which sadly a lot of third world countries have been left with my evil western companies
It will hopefully get rid of truly horrible water born parasites which kill vast numbers of ppl a year.
But all my green friends tell me how horrible bottled water is…
It is. It is purely ridiculous. Take Nestle Pure Life. Their bottling plant is 1.5 hours from me. Using the same underground source my tap water comes from. It’s ridiculous to buy Pure Life when all I need to do is turn on my freaking faucet. Same thing with Dasani. They will tap into the nearest big muncipality’s water source to you (originally started as the City of Atlanta’s municipal supply), add some minerals, and sell it to you for exorbitant prices. IT’S FREAKING TAP WATER FROM ATLANTA.
Said underground source I mentioned last paragraph? Is being depleted so fast people’s houses are falling into sinkholes created by the limestone underground not being able to hold up weight without the water there to help. Yes, bottled water is horrible. If you have nice tap water, buy a metal thermos and eschew the bottles. Don’t pay the corporations for what comes out of your faucet, that’s just stupid.
It’s not easy being green.
You srsly should spend less time with aliens that tell you bottled water is horrible, remember, they are aliens, they dont know such stuff o0.
Or did you mean Ökoactivists? Then you shall do the same o0
How fortuitous! While taking a picture of this SODIS device, a National Geographic photographer captured on film a young African sprite in pink garb that was unable to flee fast enough from the camera’s view. These rare creatures cast no shadow. They also move so swiftly and carefully that they seem to never actually touch the ground, thereby leaving no footprints or dust trails as evidence of their visit.
cloudy days cast no shadows, and obviously cloud the minds of photo inspectors.
If you reduce the beer held in bottles by pouring it in your mouth, you become more wise. THAT is fortuitous! How to you too.
Hmm…I can only respond to the parts of your comment that are able to be comprehended by anyone. I see plenty of shadows all around this scene, and I also wouldn’t dream that a reputable magazine would photoshop elements into their pictures for any reason. Nevertheless, the unusual appearance of the kid running by without leaving footprints or a dust trail makes it SEEM as if he didn’t originate in this shot.
I don’t drink beer (never acquired the taste). If you are under the impression that drinking it makes you SMARTER, by all means keep drinking massive quantities of it, Einstein!
I agree with Dogmeat here.
After zooming the pic, something feels weird to me. The pixels around the Fair… ahem… boy, are blurrier than the rest of the scene. Also, the dimmensions of the head are unnatural, and even in a cloudy day, there should be a faint shade under the boy (no matter how cloudy the day is, the light don’t dissappear, you know).
So you see, Dogmeat, I’m sorry to tell you this but… the African Fairy don’t exist.
Makes sense… I’ll bet that the UVA is only half of it – the black metal surface raised off the ground is the other half.
You don’t have to boil the water to get it hot enough to kill the bugs in it, just sitting out in the equatorial sun all day will get it plenty hot – in the 160-F range (or better) will kill darned near anything in the water.
(The bugs thrive in the watering hole, because it stays cool.)
After dusk you put the “sanitized” bottles in the shade to use the next day, and put out a new batch to bake. I’d still try to filter out the mud first, any sort of a fine cloth will do.
the project was presented at the expo 2008 (theme was water and sustainable development) in zaragoza in the swiss pavillion. it was the first time i heard about that and i was deeply impressed by the simplicity of the solution… i don’t remember everything they told us, but the bottle have to be transparent. coloured PET or pop bottles don’t work.
I suppose plastic toxins sending them blind is less of a problem than dehydration.
which basically could potentially be helpful to a country that cannot support the people already living in it
Plastic doesn’t last long under UV. Glass is better. As for obtaining glass…
Glass won’t work for this. It’s relatively opaque to UV.
So we can get rid of our waste plastic bottle problem and help the people of the world? Take that environmentalists
What, you think neoconservatives came up with this? Wow, that’s enough stupid to fuel a 747 that runs on stupid around the globe twice.
so rather than send our water bottles to a recycling center, we collect and ship them overseas? it isn’t out of the question. it has potential but i would like to see a feasibility cost assessment and a cost/benefit analysis including standard recycling & uses of recycled materials.
Only about 15% of the bottles get recycled anyway, so there is plenty of room to improve that and still have more around than anyone could ever need for this. Most of them just end up in landfills right now.
What I dont get is, on some of those PET bottle labels it states to “not keep them in direct sunlight!”. I did that once with one of those six-pack waterbottle packs and after some days I opened and drank from one, and the water inside tasted kinda funny and bad.
Ok, maybe just maybe, you could boil it and get the same effect?
Boiling takes a significant amount of energy. Sunlight is free.
Solar ovens (stove-tops?) have been designed for places, as in some parts of Africa, where firewood is scarce and animal dung should be plowed back into the farmland.
which also costs more than setting a bottle out in the sun
and a Solar Oven would be overkill for this designation.
You just don’t shoot a rabit with .50BMG ammunition (figurativly spoken)
How would you know that you hit the bunny? all that would be left is two ears and a fuzzy bunneh tail.
The brilliance of the idea aside, there are definitely pixel fuzzies around the kid…. And only the kid. Which is just weird. Theories as to why anyone would bother doing this?
pardon my ignorance, but wouldn’t that mean that if you sat out in the sun for six hours, your cells would die off? Because, I mean, they don’t?
The bottles are on a reflective metal backing which also raises the temperature a great deal. If you sat outside on a metal reflector at 160 degrees or more for 6 hours, your cells would absolutely die off.
To product of 25 billion dollars of foreign aid Africa each year.
heating plastic bottles is bad. It put even worse chemicals in the water.
For a real solution, check out http://www.sohip.org. Bringing clean water to Zambia and other places in Africa. We have these special Bio-Sand filters made from concrete and soil that clears out 97% of bacteria and diseases!
Unfortunately PTE plastic is made using a catalyst containging antimony which will leach into the water over time if left at elevated temperatures particularly if the water is acidic. Apparently the leachings are below WHO standards but over a period of time that antimony is going to build up in the body. Antimony is just above arsenic in the periodic table. So it ain’t that safe.
The Asians are about to take over in Africa and mine it for its resources – to be certain they have a “Master Plan” much as they did when they took over the American economy. They will no doubt turn everu7y African into a customer with dollars in his jeans, clean water and food and a job, in order to trade Chinese made goods with him! They may even impose a Chinese variety of communism on him – better than the Christian and Capitalist, Corporatist malarkey we foist on them today – Hell, we preach a system that doesn’t even work for us! Time for the West to step back and give China a shot at civilizing Africa from an entirely different point of view!
Way cool! Now I can dispense with those costly water purifiers for when TEOTWAWKI happens!
I love National Geographic!
Snopes has been shown to be no where near as trustworthy as they apparently were initially believed to be, being run by a couple of extreme liberals.
Wrong! The husband used to be registered as a Republican and is now an Independent. His wife is Canadian. They spend a lot of time doing research. They are being targeted through discrediting emails because they *are* neutral and have countered false conservative email rumors.
From Wikipedia: “Snopes receives more complaints that it is too liberal than that it is too conservative, but insists that it applies the same debunking standards to all political stories. FactCheck reviewed a sample of Snopes’ responses to political rumors regarding George W. Bush, Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, and found them to be free from bias in all cases.”
That’s funny. I’d label myself conservative and am registered Republican, and I often refer others to Snopes articles to squash a ton of ridiculous email rumors sent by “conservative” sources. It’s absurd to label a source like Snopes as “untrustworthy” when they provide verifiable references for their sources. Sure, you could accuse them of selection bias, but as a conservative, I certainly don’t see any.
I do have to say, though, that amount of borderline lunatic ravings coming from pseudo-conservative sources seems to be increasing dramatically lately. *sigh* I want my party back.
….this is extremely dangerous. carcinogenic chemicals from the plastic bottle enter the water after being left too long in the sun.
Um…yah the UV may kill some bugs and the whole carcinogenic chemical leaching thing turned out to be a bust but leaving water in a plasic bottle and exposing it to sunlight causes algie and bacteria to THRIVE!
They are gonna KILL someone!