Liquid Lifesaver

One mans vision- clean drinking water for all

In March this year I wrote about a wonderful new invention called 'Lifesaver Bottle' as demonstrated by Michael Pritchard at TED talks in 2009.  This device enables you to pretty much drink anything.  If you are near a water source the Lifesaver bottle is able to filter it and provide clean drinking water.  This of course would have numerous benefits for areas affected by disasters (man made or otherwise) where access to clean drinking water, essential for life, is limited or absent altogether.  So in light of this, plus my aversion to bottled water, I decided to invest in this technology and find out for myself.

I bought the device from Amazon through the Internet and within 3 days it arrived at my doorstep.  Excitement and apprehension came all at once but having read numerous reviews from the website and YouTube I decided to suck it up and get on with it. On my first free day I headed to the nearest source of unclean, standing water in town....the river lea, where I filmed what happened.  Suffice to say I have lived to tell the tail and the video explains a little more, if I can fathom out the technical difficulties I am having then this video shall be yours to see!
It is an amazing piece of kit and goes to show once more what technology can do for us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXepkIWPhFQ

'Originally posted on November 17th, since then we have solved the technical difficulties with the video upload and can finally show the bottle first hand, as it were' NNI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTxEHzMxroo

The Myth Lives On?

Back in 2006 it became apparent to me that water was becoming a big business. People walking around with bottles in their hands, afraid they were going to dry up if they went more than an hour without a contribution towards their 2 litres a day and prior to 2006 I was one of them.  For the past few years I have been trying to inform people that the bottle water industry has been in fact a big con.  There have been numerous documentaries about the subject, such as 'Water Wars, Blue Gold' and 'Tapped' and I have blogged about it here back in March also (http://newell-news.blogspot.com/2011/03/water-wars-are-coming.html)

It's all a myth

Imagine my surprise last week then when I happened across an article in a Rupert Murdoch newspaper that outed the eight glasses, or 2 litres of water a day, advice for people as a myth perpetuated by healthy living tips, probably reinforced by certain health and fitness or beauty magazines.  

I just hope they have not bribed anyone to provide this information.

Schools even have been convincing kids to bring a water bottle to school with them to stay hydrated throughout the day. As I have stated before drinking water is good for you but the water you consume comes from everything you eat and drink, not just your bottle of Evian.

Whether this change in attitude towards the consumption of water has anything to do with the droughts that the mainstream media has been highlighting in Somalia and more locally in Britain remains to be seen but we can but live in hope that the public will soon refrain from paying more for a bottle of water than a litre of petrol.

Solving Problems With A Different Way of Thinking

We all remember the scenes of carnage surrounding the chaos that was Haiti, repeated more recently with the Earth quakes in New Zealand and Japan where natural disasters destroy infrastructure and leave thousands of people without access to clean water. Aid struggles to get in, 'bottled water' has to be shipped in to meet the demand for not just the people caught up in the devastation but also the rescue workers.

A simple solution to a big problem

Michael Pritchard on TED Talks back in 2009 produced a product called 'Lifesaver Bottle' on the back of the Asian Tsunami 2004 and Hurricane Katrina 2005, that should have revolutionised the way people gained access to clean water, not just in areas where natural disasters occur but also the millions of people around the planet that are suffering daily because they have no access to clean water.
It is a step in the right direction until better access for all can be achieved.

It has had some air time on Channel 5's 'The Gadget Show' in February 2010, but mainstream media seems more concerned with the well being of Alex Reid (front page of The News of the World- March 27th)  or what Peter Crouch has been up to (the same 'news' paper).  Something this big and important should have more media coverage and should be funded by every major nation on the planet in the event of a major catastrophe.  The site of boats transporting water in specially designed rubber bags is ludicrous and another example of the 'unsane' world we live in.

Britain alone spent about $12 Billion on foreign aid in 2010, Michael Pritchard says for $20 Billion the entire planet could drink clean water.  If only there was enough 'money' to do so.

Take 10 minutes of your 'time' to have a look on YouTube at Michael Pritchard's master piece.  If Obama has a Nobel Prize, where's this guys?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXepkIWPhFQ