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emmessjee:

Vestergaard Frandsen

LifeStrawÂ

Providing money, roads, education, electricity, and employment to needy people of the world is a noble idea, but it’s like putting the cart before the horse when a billion people don’t have a reliable source of safe drinking water. They are in danger of ingesting typhoid, dysentery, salmonella, diphtheria, E. coli, or cholera. Water treatment plants and long distance pipes are terribly expensive for Third World nations, and even purified water can become contaminated with disease before consumption.

A possible solution: a personal water filter for each person. Danish water purification company Vestergaard Frandsen has developed the LifeStraw® Personal, a small filter that requires no power and can be worn on a string around the neck. There are no moving parts and no maintenance is required. Sip water directly through the LifeStraw® and it removes 99% of waterborne bacteria and viruses. There are several layers inside to filter out increasingly smaller pathogens, then iodine to kill the smallest, and finally charcoal to remove the iodine taste. After use, you blow air back through the straw to clear the filters. A personal filter lasts for about a year’s use. It is not effective against the parasite Giardia lamblia, which is smaller than 5 microns, but the company is working on it.

I like when a company is faced with a parasite that’s smaller than 5 microns, and they refuse to call it a day.

Like, if I had a problem in my life that was 4 microns across, I’d probably say, “Good enough.” 5 microns is a totally acceptable level for most people. But it ain’t perfect. Good on ‘em for crossing the 5-micron threshold and striking forth.