“Water Filters for the Third World”
May 18th, 2005
A materials researcher in Australia has invented (and importantly not patented) a water filter that is made from a) cow manure, b) coffee grounds, and c) clay – materials which cost next to nothing and are availible in most developing nations. Possibly one of the best examples of good design I’ve ever heard, it successfully filters E. coli bacteria. Basically, the clay and coffee are mixed, and baked over a cow-dung fire. Part of the coffee burns away, and part combines with the clay to form silica. A network of minute tunnels remains: the water filter.
Now, posters on WorldChanging are trying to come up with a DIY carbon filter to address chemical pollutants as well. Open source collaborative design!
Popularity: 6% [?]
May 23rd, 2005 at 2:09 pm
This guy has to be seriously lauded. Unclean water is estimated to kill up to 2 million people, mostly children, annually.
May 27th, 2005 at 5:15 am
I know nothing about patent law…. So what keeps some other fool from patenting this? Can you really non-patent something? Or better to patent a design and charge $0.00 royalties whatever. I am stupid
July 27th, 2005 at 4:00 pm
If he publishes the work, nobody else can claim intellectual property rights on it. In fact, he can’t either.
January 9th, 2006 at 12:27 am
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
January 13th, 2006 at 9:28 pm
Sorry, removed that last post as it was an advertisement for hangover solutions. If anyone has a hangover contact me and I’ll undelete it.
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:25 pm
well, i think i’d want you to delete my hangover, not undelete it…
While hangovers are often caused by dehydration, I highly doubt people in the third-world are worrying about them. stoopid viral marketing.
May 25th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Seriously hillarious! Yep, people’ve been drinking water fo thousands upon thousands of years…and now “open source”, “creative community” will help us? What a load! Seriously, nothing really good has ever come out of “creative communities”...most of it is works of hand-full of really smart people, and lots of nay- and yay-sayers. He should start buying water filters from one of these cool small internet sites out there, like this: Water filters.
But ha-ha funny
May 25th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
I meant Filter water
August 17th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
[...] Related Posts: Water Filters for the 3rd World, Solar Oven from Wind Reflector [...]
October 27th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Hello, Give something to help those hungry people from Africa or India,
I made this blog about that subject:
on http://tinyurl.com/556poc
February 27th, 2009 at 9:11 am
This is the most redundant thing I’ve ever seen. How can someone filter water with shit. Seriously the stupidity of people these days is exceeding well beyond my expectations. Even though I must say that desperate times call for desperate measures.
March 23rd, 2009 at 5:15 am
He uses burning shit to build the filter, not shit to filter.
Read the story you twat.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Its to bad and industrial water purification system could not be installed such as http://www.kfactorfilter.com.