A year’s drinking water for only $5
It’s hard to believe something so fundamental as water was not mentioned in any of the major human rights treaties until 1989. I guess earlier drafters took water for granted in a way that is now unthinkable.
In addition to the explicit provision in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the right to water is implied in the right to life, the right to health and the right to an adequate standard of living. UN experts have provided authoritative advice on the obligations in relation to this right. Defining it is one thing; delivering it is another.
After seeing children die of water-borne diseases in Zimbabwe, retired Australian physicist John Ward tinkered around in his backyard — and invested all his superannuation — until he succeeded in inventing a solar water purifier. It’s a black plastic box topped with special kind of white glass tilted at 12.5 degrees. Ultra-violent light from the sun breaks down the DNA bonds of algae, bacteria and viruses in dirty water, killing them. Meanwhile, the infra-red component of sunlight makes the water evaporate and collect on the underside of the glass, where it runs down and collects as pure, clean water for drinking. It has been proven to remove salt from seawater, arsenic from groundwater, and diseases such as giardia, cryptospyridium, legionella, salmonella and more. Any water source can be made potable.
Ward’s device, demonstrated on ABC-TV’s The New Inventors, can produce between 6 and 9 litres per square metre per day, depending on the temperature — enough to supply a family with daily drinking water. Unlike other methods of turning contaminated water or seawater into safe drinking water, Ward’s invention is cheap, low-tech and low-maintenance. It requires no chemicals, no electricity and has no moving parts. Keep it wet every day with dirty water and that’s it. The plastic should last 7 to 10 years. If mass produced, the purifier could cost as little as $AUD50 ($US38).
