Believe it or not, more people have died due to contaminated and polluted water than violence and war, according to the United Nations Environmental Programme’s 2010 Contaminated Water report. But now, there is a life-saving device that is just pocket-sized and it could turn the most polluted water into safe drinking water!
The award-winning device called LifeStraw is a straw-style filter that could turn any polluted and contaminated water into clean water.
The 9-inch long tube filters 99 percent of waterborne bacteria like E.Coli and salmonella which are responsible for illnesses like diarrhea, vomiting, and fever
This means that safe drinking water is now more accessible to the people who live in parts of the world where clean water is hard to come by.
It also makes for a convenient, ideal gear for hikers, backpackers, and travellers to bring on their trips
But how does it work?
LifeStraw is equipped with a mass of hollow fibers with 0.2-microns pores across the device. These tiny pores are extremely efficient at trapping microscopic organisms, allowing clean water to pass through.
This device has undergone a major improvement compared to its first design. The first design of LifeStraw uses iodine to kill bacteria but it leaves a bad taste to the filtered water. With the new improvement, the chemical-free design can filter up to 4,000 litres of water before it needs replacing
The product was originally designed to bring clean water to the third world where 1 in 9 people lack access to clean water, an estimation of around 844 million of people do not have access to safe water.
Vestergaard, the mastermind behind the straw earned a Halo Award in 2017 for their “Follow The Litres” programme which ensures that for every product sold, one child in a developing community gets access to safe water for an entire school year.
Currently, more than 629,000 children in Kenya and India are gaining benefits from the programme, making it one of the world’s largest private investments in safe water
Apart from the third world countries, Vestergaard is also supplying the straw to areas which are in post-disaster recovery like Haiti which suffers from a recent earthquake.
If you would like to find out more about this amazing straw, head to their official website, www.lifestraw.com
