I have recently discovered a series of interesting articles about solutions to health problems using improved water sanitation technology on The New York Times’ Opinionator blog and in their Small Fixes column. Here are some highlights:

Keeping the Water Flowing in Rural Villages : “A new program was started recently by WaterAid in the north of India.  It trains local people, including many women, to repair water pumps. They now run businesses that charge villages low fees for quick, guaranteed and reliable repairs when their hand pumps break down.”

To Maintain Water Pumps, It Takes More Than a Village: This is the follow-up to the “Keeping the Water Flowing” article above. “Readers responded with many practical ideas and incisive comments — some of them speaking from sad experience — to the last column on the sustainability of water pumps.”

LifeStraw Saves Those Without Access to Clean Drinking Water: “LifeStraw, produced by the Swiss company Vestergaard Frandsen, was designed for the poorest of the poor. The personal version works like a chunky drinking straw and can filter about 1,000 liters, enough to keep a person hydrated for a year. The family version — which looks something like an IV drip that ends in a water cannon — can purify 18,000 liters, serving a typical family for about three years.”

Photo credit: Vestergaard Frandsen

Clean Water at No Cost? Just Add Carbon Credits: “Now there’s a new way to save water projects from an early death: make clean water a for-profit business, charging people an unusual price: zero. Several multinational companies, such as Bechtel and Suez, already have run for-profit water systems in cities around the world. These companies have attracted a lot of criticism, especially for the way they treat rural people and slum dwellers. The companies have little incentive to lay pipes to reach people who are far away, and if they do, they charge very high prices. I’m talking about something different: a water business run by a company that has headquarters in Switzerland, Vestergaard Frandsen, that plans to provide clean water to some of the world’s poorest people and charge them nothing. Where will the profits come from? Polluters.”

Follow-up to “Clean Water at No Cost?”: Green Strategies for the Poorest:  The author, who had discussed the LifeStraw Family in the article above, writes about how this product’s manufacturer,Vestergaard Frandsen, is planning to make money with it. “Not from the poor families who use it — they will give it away in western Kenya. Instead, the company plans to be paid in credits they can sell on the global carbon markets. In this system, credits are awarded to projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They may then be bought by polluting companies or governments to offset their own emissions. LifeStraw Family users no longer have to boil their water to make it safe to drink. Less boiling means fewer emissions.”

Folding Saris to Filter Cholera-Contaminated Water : Rural Bangladeshi women often use pieces of saris, the traditional dress, to filter sweetened drinks to get rid of leaves, insects and other visible debris. About 10 years ago, researchers in Maryland and Bangladesh, looking for ways to reduce the prevalence of waterborne diseases in local communities, came up with a ridiculously simple solution: Wash and fold the sari. Bangladeshi women in 27 villages were trained to cover water-collecting urns with a laundered sari folded four times before scooping up river water. The cotton fibers strain out 99% of cholera bacilli. “Over the next 18 months the rate of cholera in these villages dropped by about 50 percent, compared with other villages — about the same effect as that achieved by a much more expensive nylon water filter.”

The PeePoo, a Biodegradable Toilet for the Developing World:  Forty percent of the world’s population (2.6 billion people) does not have access to a toilet. To address this problem, a  Swedish architect and professor named Anders Wilhelmson has invented a biodegradable toilet called a PeePoo which resembles a plastic bag. “After it is used, the bag is knotted and then buried or sold back to the manufacturer. A lining of urea crystals in the bag helps transform the waste into fertilizer…Currently, about 6,000 PeePoo bags are produced every day and distributed in slums in Nairobi, Kenya…Mr. Wilhelmson’s company buys back the used bags for a third of the original price, and the waste is turned into fertilizer.”