10 Cents for 10 Litres of clean water - stopping disease from contaminated water

[Bob]

Simple chemistry is used to drop out organic wastes, assorted toxins, bacteria, fungi, and then a disinfectant to kill the viri, bacteria and fungi..

Flocculation and disinfection are two techniques used by water treatment plants worldwide. Such "facilities" don't exist in many parts of the world.. The result is generally tragic from contaminated water.

Proctor and Gamble has come up with an extremely cost effective humanitarian project to help with cleaning up untreated, raw putrid water which is being drunk by kids and adults worldwide, resulting in terrible cases of disease.

In a half hour one will have 10 litres of drinkable "safe" water is what the article is saying.

Here is the Article.
P&G™ sachets are now centrally produced in Pakistan, and sold to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) worldwide at a cost of 3.5 US cents per sachet.

The P&G™ product is a small sachet containing powdered ferric sulfate (a flocculant) and calcium hypochlorite (a disinfectant).

P&G™ was designed to reverse-engineer a water treatment plant, incorporating the multiple barrier processes of removal of particles and disinfection.

To treat water with P&G™, users open the sachet, add the contents to an open bucket containing 10 liters of water, stir for 5 minutes, let the solids settle to the bottom of the bucket, strain the water through a cotton cloth into a second container, and wait 20 minutes for the hypochlorite to inactivate the microorganisms.

Lab Effectiveness, Field Effectiveness, and Health Impact

The flocculant/disinfectant powder P&G™ has been proven to remove the vast majority of bacteria, viruses, and protozoa, even in highly turbid waters.

P&G™ has also been documented to reduce diarrheal disease from 90% to less than 16% incidence in five randomized, controlled health intervention studies. P&G™ also removes heavy metals—such as arsenic—and chemical contaminants—such as pesticides—from water.

Studies showing the efficacy of P&G™ have been conducted for highly turbid water in the laboratory, in developing countries, in rural and urban areas, refugee camps, and include all age groups.

Benefits, Drawbacks, and Appropriateness

The benefits of Flocculant/Disinfectant Powder are:


Proven reduction of bacteria, viruses, and protozoa in water
Removal of heavy metals and chemicals
Increased free chlorine protection against contamination
Proven reduction of diarrheal disease
Visual improvement of water and acceptability
Transport of sachets easy
Long shelf life of sachets


The drawbacks of Flocculant/Disinfectant Powder are:


Multiple steps are necessary—requires training or demonstration

Requires a lot of equipment (2 buckets, cloth, and a stirrer) :)

The higher relative cost per liter of water treated (than drinking raw water)

P&G™ is most appropriate in areas with a consistent supply chain for sachet resupply and in urban, rural, and emergency situations when educational messages can reach users to encourage correct and consistent use.


Implementation Examples

Social marketing organizations, such as the NGO Population Services International, sell P&G™ sachets in multiple countries.

Local organizations use the socially marketed P&G™ sachets in their own programming to provide safe drinking water. In western Kenya, students in schools are taught how and why to use P&G™, and safe water clubs treat drinking water for all the students. Also in Kenya, HIV self-help groups sell P&G™ sachets and storage containers as an income-generating activity.

P&G™ sachets have been widely used to respond to emergencies – from the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia to flooding in Haiti to cholera epidemics in Africa.

The Procter & Gamble Children’s Safe Drinking Water program has been given numerous awards, including the Ron Brown Presidential Award for Corporate Leadership in 2007, the EPA Children’s Health Excellence Award in 2007, the Grainger Challenge Bronze Award in 2007, and the Stockholm Industry Water Award in 2005.

Economics and Scalability

Each sachet of P&G™ is provided to global emergency relief organizations or non-governmental organizations at a cost of 3.5 US cents, not including shipping from Pakistan by ocean container.

Transport, distribution, education, and community motivation can add significantly to program costs.

Sachets are generally sold "retail" at product cost recovery for 10 US cents each, for a cost of 1 US cent per liter treated.

Currently, P&G™ projects operate either on partial cost recovery (charging the user only for the product, and subsidizing program costs with donor funds), or fully subsidized free distribution such as in emergency situations. Procter & Gamble sells the P&G™ sachets at cost, makes no profits on P&G™ sales, and donates programmatic funding to some projects.

References

Chiller TM, Mendoza CE, Lopez MB, Alvarez M, Hoekstra RM, Keswick BH, Luby SP. Reducing diarrhoea in Guatemalan children: randomized controlled trial of flocculant-disinfectant for drinking-water.External Web Site Icon Bull World Health Organ. 2006; Jan 84(1):28-35.

Crump JA, Otieno PO, S l u t s k e r L, Keswick BH, Rosen DH, Hoekstra RM, Vulule JM, Luby SP. Household based treatment of drinking water with flocculant-disinfectant for preventing diarrhoea in areas with turbid source water in rural western Kenya: cluster randomised controlled trial.External Web Site Icon BMJ. 2005; Sep 3 331(7515):478.

Luby SP, Agboatwalla M, Painter J, Altar A, Billhimer W, Keswick B, Hoeskstra RM. Combining drinking water treatment and hand washing for diarrhea prevention, a cluster randomized controlled trial.External Web Site Icon Trop Med Int Health. 2006; Apr 11(4):479-89.

Reller ME, Mendoza CE, Lopez MB, Alvarez M, Hoekstra RM, Olson CA, Baier KG, Keswick BH, Luby SP. A randomized controlled trial of household-based flocculant-disinfectant drinking water treatment for diarrhea prevention in rural Guatemala.External Web Site Icon Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2003; Oct 69(4):411-9.

Doocy S, Burnham G. Point-of-use water treatment and diarrhea reduction in the emergency context: an effectiveness trial in Liberia.External Web Site Icon Trop Med Int Health. 2006 Oct; 11(10):1542-52.


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(Source (http://www.scidev.net/sub-saharan-africa/water/news/water-purifier-sachet-effectively-kills-water-germs.html))

and

(Source (http://www.pghsi.com/safewater))


http://bijay.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/world-water-day.jpg

and

(Source (http://www.cdc.gov/safewater/flocculant-filtration.html))

[Flash]

at this price most poors on the planet, who are in majority in some countries, cannot afford it, 10 cent per 10 litres is too expensive for them, something most westerners cannot even imagine - yes the world is that poor.

[Bob]

Another thread on Avalon talks about the Calcium hypochlorite disinfectant.

http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?15153-How-To-Purify-Water-with-Calcium-Hypochlorite

What was not mentioned in that thread was how to drop out the heavy metals, and other organics with a Flocculant (which this current thread discusses).

From the P&G website "safe water (http://www.pghsi.com/pghsi/safewater/)" page - "More than 2,000 children die every day from diseases caused by unsafe drinking water. To help address this, P&G developed P&G Purifier of Water.."

This P&G product the manufacturer says WILL drop out heavy metals, and Arsenic, Mercury, Lead, Nickle, Barium, Cadmium, Chromium. (see the PDF reference at http://cpe.njit.edu/dlnotes/CHE685/Cls06-2.pdf ) ... It is possible that the hypochlorite component will deal with cyanide components (wastewaters from gold/copper/silver mining often contain cyanides and heavy metal complexes.)

Also Phosphorus can be removed from animal (i.e. pig) wastes, fertilizer wastes, or detergent run-offs.

They are also saying this product will deal with "chlorine-resistant parasites".


Every day, safe drinking water is a problem for more than 1 billion people all over the world.

According to UNICEF, more than 1,600 children die every day from diseases caused by drinking dirty water – more than malaria and HIV/AIDS combined.

P&G states that it has invested more than 10 years and millions of dollars in providing clean drinking water with its award-winning P&G Purifier of Water technology. The 4 grams of powder inside each water purification packet turn 10 liters of dirty, potentially deadly water into clean and drinkable water in minutes.

They are saying that this combo packet when used correctly removes more than 99.99999% of common waterborne bacteria (including those that cause cholera), 99.99% of common waterborne viruses (including those that cause Hepatitis A), and 99.9% of protozoa from contaminated water, helping to reduce diarrheal disease incidence in the developing world by up to 90%.

In November 2012, The Economist recognized it as one of the world’s most impactful innovations and the US Patent and Trademark office bestowed an inaugural Patents for Humanity Award in
April 2013.


To celebrate this milestone, P&G is seeking the public’s support to provide even more clean drinking water through a social media initiative. P&G will donate an additional liter of clean
drinking water every time social media users post the hashtag #7billionliters on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram from April 15 through Earth Day on April 22. Through this program, clean water
supporters around the world can help P&G donate up to 1 million additional liters of clean drinking water to those that need it most through the CSDW Program.

(from Source page (http://www.csdw.org/csdw/downloads/P-G-CSDW-7-Billion-Liter-Press-Release-final.pdf) .pdf file )

[Bob]

The ultimate cost (and trying to perform medical treatment to deal with ingested E. Coli, Parasites, amoebas) for drinking unsanitary water is generally 'death', P&G says it does donate completely the treatment, that such is at cost. Various aid organizations world-wide are doing what they can trying to get ANY treatment for clean water. And they do use the product. It is more cost effective than putting in unaffordable water treatment plants.

The 10 cents comes from a suggestion for the supporting organizations to do "cost recovery", but still the cost is minimal. They also suggest that local groups could create a small sustainable cottage style industry to provide clean water to their communities.

Making available a needed product, for self help.. Solutions that can be affordable instead of giving up, in other words.

There is also a FUND to help provide such at zero cost to the needy.


at this price most poors on the planet, who are in majority in some countries, cannot afford it, 10 cent per 10 litres is too expensive for them, something most westerners cannot even imagine - yes the world is that poor.

[Daozen]

Great thread Bob. This is maybe the most significant news breakthrough of the year. Dirty water is much more dangerous than even a politician.

Thanks for giving hope to people, I was so excited about this.

Peace

[Bob]

Will Calcium Hypochlorite solution disinfect water (http://www.unicef.org/media/media_72954.html) contaminated from Ebola?

It depends on the strength and time of the active chlorine produced by the hypochlorite. The calcium hypochlorite substance has a longer shelf life than liquid bleach.

Getting contaminated water on oneself obviously would not be safe.

The water issue is a serious issue. What happens if in a large body of water Ebola contamination exists? It depends on the dilution, the distance from the source of the contamination.

Is using the P&G product a good thing? Apparently taking the steps to remove the heavy metals, organic contaminants, and using the disinfection substance (http://www.geekprepper.org/disinfect-water-with-calcium-hypochlorite/) is the correct procedure.

Boiling water for 20 minutes additionally would ensure a higher safety level.

Here is a flip chart handed out in Africa to help people understand about Ebola infections. It would be good to follow for any type of symptom(s) described in the PDF.


http://www.unicef.org/cbsc/files/EbolaFlipChart_IPC_Final_16042014.pdf

Articles about relatively easy water filters - (the P&G product in the OP only requires a tight cloth to capture the flock'd (dropped out) brownish particles)

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Water-Filter

And also here.. (http://www.geek-prepper.com/diy-home-water-filter/)