Friends,
About the silver treatment of water filters, this is becoming accepted
by folks who otherwise dislike silver, since the silver doesn't get into
the filtered water. It is true that the potters for Peace filter pot (7
liter filter element, resembling a flower pot) continues to have many
users, around a half million world wide, and that is to the
organizations credit. Since my earlier correspondence, sited by Ode,
the pottery purifier candles I introduced to Nepal have had a successful
project conclusion. Check out the site: www.purifier.com.np
I stopped updating purifier.com.np last year, since my family moved
from Nepal, but would like to report here the results of the project.
The candles are 4.5 ins. diameter and 4.5 ins. height, the systems as
low priced as US$4.50. The candles were found to have an excellant
removal rate for e coli and other harmful bacteria. (It's virtually 100%
removal if properly manufactured and used.) At 2.0 liters of purified
water per hour the system has been said to meet the needs of a family of
five or six. Maintenance is simple, requiring that the contaminated
water of the upper container be topped off only twice daily.
The systems were placed in sixty low income communities which have had
no piped water, so surface collection of water is necessary. The
communities were chosen partly on the basis that other water
purification interventions, such as boiling and chlorine, had not been
considered acceptable by the users. A concluding questionaire indicated
that 80% of the users would willingly purchase a replacement system, at
such time as this becomes necessary.
I would like to add that it appears that it is only the Potters for
Peace filter pot and the pottery purifier of the Nepal project that
continue to be the only filter elements to have been found appropriate,
that are made of the common pottery clays. Other ceramic filters are
made using expensive resources. Policy makers are taking this to be
important, since the production model is widely replicable, dependent on
local resoures, therefore sustainable. The result of imported resources
is that people like the poor of the Nepal study will be less likely to
pay the price.
Recently there's been talk that the U.S. would like to back down on the
Millennium Development Goals. The MDGs stipulate that by 2015, half of
the worlds poorest will get decent drinking water, half of the 1.1
billion who do not have piped water from a pure source. Without undue
immodesty I should also say that at a recent international conference on
household water treatment there were several presentaions that indicated
a widespread user preference ceramic water filters. The conference
indicated a growing consensus among its participants, even the purveyors
of other point-of-use technologies, that ceramic systems are indeed
appropriate. Aside from the high degree of effectiveness and the low
cost the low income users have found the systems to be simple to maintain.
One challenge pertains to hygiene/ education. In instances where the
use of ceramic filters has not led to a reduced rate of diarrheal
illness a reason has been the lack of hand washing, prior to filling a
glass. Because the questionnaires tend always to get a "yes" response,
when asked if hands are being washed, there is a need for creative ways
of ascertaining the extent of this practice. More importantly there
needs to be a campaign, sensitively acquainting those of low income to
the need for hygeinic practices.
Reid Harvey
http://www.potters.org/subject32525.htm
Reid Harvey on wed 23 aug 00 (ceram...@bol-online.com)
Dear Janet, Mel, Paul, Gavin, Louis, Everybody,
For the sake of better understanding I would like to give a somewhat
simplified description of the earthenware water purifiers of both
Potters for Peace and Ceramiques d'Afrique. The two are very different
in design, thus far that of PFP being better established and accepted
than that of Ceramique d'Afrique [Reid does these, I think]
Ode
At 04:52 PM 9/18/2005 -0700, you wrote:
>>>>
<http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/steigerwald/s_374925.html>http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/steigerwald/s_374925.html
This looks to me the same use of silver, clay, sawdust and dirty water
as what Reid Harvey was doing in India a couple of years ago.
What do you all say?
Trem
