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[at-l] Water Purification, Tsunami-style
- Subject: [at-l] Water Purification, Tsunami-style
- From: janl2 at mindspring.com (Jan Leitschuh)
- Date: Fri Jan 7 05:34:55 2005
Lady Di sent me this fascinating article about a new ketchup-sized
packet water purification, made by PUR.
I wonder if they are the same chemicals as the aqueous Aqua Mira?
Right now, the "entire global supply" is going overseas, but may show
up in the hiker market in a year or two?
PURshoe
By Tom Avril
Inquirer Staff Writer
They took a bucket of muddy, bacteria-laden water. Added a bit of
white powder. Stirred.
And within minutes, standing amid 100 refugees in war-torn Liberia,
researchers from Johns Hopkins University had produced what seemed
like a magic trick:
Clear, drinkable water.
"I couldn't believe it when I saw it," Hopkins researcher Shannon
Doocy said of her work last year. "The people in Liberia couldn't
believe it."
The powder, developed by Procter & Gamble Co. with the federal Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention, is now headed for its biggest test
yet: the tsunami zone.
Relief agencies, led by AmeriCares of Stamford, Conn., are sending
over at least 15 million packets of the stuff - enough to purify 40
million gallons of water. Health officials yesterday said the lack of
potable water represented a grave threat to survivors. Water and sewer
plants have shut down, and pipes are ruptured, leading some victims to
drink sewage water.
Relief workers have been treating water for decades with chlorine
bleach, which kills most germs but does not improve the water's
appearance.
The new powder, called PUR, contains chlorine but has other
ingredients that give it two key advantages. PUR gets rid of toxic
"heavy metals," such as arsenic and mercury, and it makes muddy water
look clean - a key to winning acceptance from those who may be leery
of aid from outsiders.
"People need to believe that they're drinking water that's purified,"
said Jeff Albert, an environmental scientist at Brown University who
is helping raise money for AmeriCares.
The added ingredients - primarily iron sulfate and clay - cause
particles in the water to clump together and settle to the bottom, so
they can be strained out through cloth. The process, known as
flocculation, is used in many municipal water-treatment plants,
including Philadelphia's, but the powder has not previously been made
in small packets for widespread public use.
PUR has other advantages. Unlike boiling water, it does not require
energy on site. And it is much lighter and easier to transport than
fresh water.
It costs Procter & Gamble about 8 cents to make each packet, or
"sachet," of powder, said Gregory S. Allgood, director of safe
drinking water for the Cincinnati-based corporation. The company has
donated most of the sachets, which are about the size of a ketchup packet.
About one-third were sold for a nominal fee - 3.5 cents per packet -
as a signal to relief workers that it has some value, to encourage
that it be used correctly and responsibly, Allgood said.
For now, the supply is limited. The amount being shipped to Sri Lanka
and other tsunami-ravaged nations represents the company's entire
global inventory.
P&G formerly made the powder in the Philippines, through a contractor,
and has switched to its own plant in Karachi, Pakistan, where it is
ramping up production.
In addition to providing the product to nonprofit groups, the company
tried in the past to sell the powder for profit. That effort had
limited success, but P&G will continue to manufacture the product for
humanitarian use, Allgood said.
The PUR brand also is used for the company's home water-treatment
filters, which use a different technology involving carbon.
The powder packets, besides being used in emergencies, are gaining
favor as a long-term solution in countries where clean water is
unavailable. Population Services International, a Washington-based
nonprofit, recently has used PUR in Uganda and Kenya, vice president
Sally Cowal said.
Worldwide, the number-one goal for PUR and other treatments is to
prevent diarrhea, which is believed to kill 5,000 children every day.
The product is not a panacea. It will not purify raw or undiluted sewage.
But the powder has proven its worth. Last year in Liberia, the Johns
Hopkins researchers found that people using PUR were one-eighth as
likely to contract diarrhea as those drinking untreated water.
Children under 5 were one-twelfth as likely to get the disease if they
drank treated water, said Doocy, who works at the university's
Bloomberg School of Public Health.
As for the Indian Ocean disaster, P&G suffered its own loss. Its
country manager in Thailand, Orapim Milindasuta, was killed in the
tsunami.
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AT Journal:
http://www.trailjournals.com/Liteshoe/
Jan Leitschuh Sporthorses Ltd.
http://www.mindspring.com/~janl2/index.html
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