18.05.2024
WaterROAM Gets Clean Drinking Water Without Any Electricity
A Singapore-based company's award-winning water filtering device - which has been providing clean drinking water to disaster-struck and rural communities worldwide - was inspired by an ordinary bicycle pump. Once a tube connected to the device is dipped into a silt-ridden river or traditional well, the user just has to push down the piston, and out flows clean water. To date, the Roamfilter Plus and its related products have been used in 43 countries, bringing clean water to around 267,000 people. The Roamfilter Plus - which weighs less than 5kg - can serve around 120 people, with 15 to 20 litres of potable water for each person daily. The device can provide 300 litres of water per hour. The device is equipped with ultra filtration technology, where membranes within the cylindrical apparatus filter out bacteria, viruses and parasites from the water. However, the system does not remove other contaminants such as heavy metals or lead, and further water treatment procedures would be needed. But under the World Health Organisation's (WHO) International Scheme to Evaluate Household Water Treatment Technologies, the device earned two stars, which means it has comprehensive protection in its ability to remove pathogens from drinking water. According to WHO, at least two billion people use a drinking water source contaminated with faeces, as at 2023. Wateroam was formed in 2014 by Mr Pong, Mr Loka and Mr Lim Chong Tee, now the company’s chief marketing officer, under an entrepreneurship programme when they were students at the National University of Singapore. Credit: uplink
Poverty deprives people of adequate education, health care and of life's most basic necessities- safe living conditions (including clean air and clean drinking water) and an adequate food supply. The developed (industrialized) countries today account for roughly 20 percent of the world's population but control about 80 percent of the world's wealth.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
Poverty and pollution seem to operate in a vicious cycle that, so far, has been hard to break. Even in the developed nations, the gap between the rich and the poor is evident in their respective social and environmental conditions.
