By Dr. Mercola
"Carbon for Water," a film by Evan Abramson and Carmen Elsa Lopez,
reveals a reality most people in the Western world cannot fathom — a
world where a large portion of each day is devoted to finding drinkable
water.
In the Western Province of Kenya, 90 percent of the population have
no easy access to drinking water. In order to make the available water
safe to drink, they must first search for firewood, and then boil the
water.
Alas, firewood is an equally scarce commodity, and locals resort to
illegally cutting down and stealing wood from the ever-dwindling forest
— a practice said to contribute to deforestation, which makes the
threat of water shortage even more severe.
At present, Kenya's forest covers less than 2 percent of the land, but as noted by the filmmakers:1
"Just six or seven decades ago a beautiful forest
covered most of Western Province. Today, a lot of the forest is gone.
Forest degradation and the reduction of rainfall are connected.
Once the forest is destroyed, the rainfall is reduced. In order
to avoid conflicts that might lead to civil wars, Kenya's forests need
to be protected urgently, but that can't happen if people rely on
firewood to boil the water they need to drink."
Children Risk Life and Limb in Search of Wood and Water
In Kenya, it is the woman's role to collect firewood and water, and
young girls are expected to perform this chore by the time they're 6
years old, even though the source of water and wood may be miles away
from home.
Many spend so much time on this chore, they do not have time to go
to school. It's also a rather dangerous task. Wild animal attacks are a
constant danger. Some drown while crossing rivers.
Many young girls also end up getting raped while out alone in the
woods. They must also keep a lookout for rangers who roam the forest,
as getting caught stealing firewood can have very serious
ramifications, including incarceration.
How the LifeStraw Program Saves Lives
An estimated 5,000 Kenyans, mostly children, die from drinking contaminated water and/or smoke inhalation each year.
As explained by Vestergaard CEO Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen in the
video below, whenever a consumer in the developed world buys a
LifeStraw water filter, a student in the developing world receives a
one-year supply of safe drinking water.
The LifeStraw personal on-the-go water filtration system,3 which is perfect for campers and hikers, for example, removes bacteria and protozoa, and reduces chlorine taste and odors.
The same type of dual-stage filtration systems are dispatched into
Kenyan and Indian homes and schools when you buy these products.
Follow the Liters
By eliminating the need to boil water, it reduces deforestation from
the fires. Vestergaard, which has offices in Switzerland, India, the
U.S., Kenya and Vietnam, has teams of trained personnel — some 8,000
individuals in all — that service hundreds of schools and nearly 900,000
homes.
More than 4 million individuals have already been given easy access to clean water through this program.
When the water filtration system
is installed, they also educate the families, teachers and students on
safe hygiene and hand-washing, the importance of clean water and how
to properly use the filtration system.
The company's staff also perform maintenance on the systems, and
there are over 30 free service centers available, should an unscheduled
repair be needed.
To engage and inspire consumer confidence, LifeStraw's Follow the Liters program4
is set up to be completely transparent. The website offers detailed
real-time statistics on the number of schools and children being
reached, for example.
At the time of this writing, 664 schools in Kenya and India have
received LifeStraw's water filtration systems, providing more than
369,000 students with clean drinking water.
The healthcare workers in the field use a smartphone app to input
the data in real time, providing GPS locations that then end up on a
map showing exactly where and when water filters were installed.
According to survey data, over 90 percent of households using the
LifeStraw water filter report saving money on medical expenses.5 They also save money on fuel, since they no longer need to boil water.
Naturally, it has a significant impact on education as well, as
children who don't have to spend all day fetching water and wood now
have time to attend school.
Ceramic Water Filtration Provides Inexpensive Solution to Clean Water in Rural Mexico
Last year, after previously visiting them in Mexico, I partnered with CATIS-Mexico,6
another organization focused on providing water-stressed areas with
clean water. CATIS is a non-profit organization based in San Miguel de
Allende in central Mexico. Its mission is to improve health, local
economy and environmental sustainability by providing training and
technical assistance to economically limited communities, providing
them with practical and economical solutions for water treatment.
The Independence Watershed in Guanajuato State, located in the heart
of Mexico, has struggled with declining water quality and quantity for
decades due to overexploitation and pollution. The region began
drilling and extracting water at unsustainable rates starting in the
1940s. As a result of over-drilling and extraction, naturally occurring
minerals, such as fluoride and arsenic, are being concentrated to toxic levels.
The levels of fluoride are more than 12 times the allowable level in
some communities. Levels of bacteria in the water are also high.
CATIS-Mexico is committed to providing communities in these regions
with access to safe and clean drinking water. One major project that
has met with great success has been the development of ceramic filters
that can provide clean water for drinking, free of bacterial
contamination.
The filters used by CATIS-Mexico are made in a simple hand mold using
locally available clay and burn-out material (such as waste sawdust).
They are fired in a kiln and then treated with a colloidal silver
solution to kill pathogens. One CATIS filter produces about 24 liters
(6.3 gallons) of water a day, requires little maintenance, and lasts
two to three years.
It can reduce the cost of potable water from 10 cents to .001 cents
per liter. They also provide training and resources for local
communities to set up their own kilns and make their own filters and,
in the process, create sustainable micro-businesses. If you are able to I
strongly urge you to make a donation to this fantastic organization
today.
How You Can Make a Difference
If you're as thankful as I am that we don't need to spend hours each
day to secure drinkable water, you may consider aiding others who are
stuck with this plight.
As mentioned, each purchase of a LifeStraw7
water filtration product will provide a year's worth of water for one
student in a developing community. You can find their products on
LifeStraw.com, Amazon.com and other websites. To support CATIS-Mexico's
mission, please make a donation.
As a way of acknowledging your support, I will donate a dollar for
every dollar you donate to CATIS-Mexico to match and leverage your
donation.
Mind Your Own Water Quality as Well
Last but not least, while most people in the developed world have
easy access to water, the quality and purity of that water is another
matter entirely. Many areas of the U.S., for example, have exceptionally
poor water quality due to toxic contaminants. The sources of pollution
are many, ranging from agricultural runoff and industrial releases to
outworn pipes, firefighting foam and pharmaceutical drugs, and even the
chemicals used during water treatment.
Clean, pure water is essential for health, and I strongly encourage
you to filter the water you use both for drinking and bathing. The
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates tap water in the U.S.,
but while there are legal limits on many of the contaminants permitted
in municipal water supplies, more than half of the 300+ chemicals
detected in U.S. drinking water are unregulated.8
If you have well water, it would be prudent to have your water
tested for arsenic and other contaminants. If you have public water,
you can get local drinking water quality reports from the EPA.9 As a general rule, I recommend using a high-quality water filtration system unless you can verify the purity of your water.
To be certain you're getting the purest water you can, filter the
water both at the point of entry and at the point of use. This means
filtering all the water that comes into the house, and then filtering
again at the kitchen sink and shower. Unfiltered water can also expose
you to dangerous chlorine vapors and chloroform gas. The FDA and other
U.S. government agencies report that most homes in the U.S. have
measurable levels of chloroform gas, courtesy of chlorinated tap water.
If you get your water from a municipal water supply and don't have a
whole house filter, it really is important to open up windows on
opposing sides of your home so you get cross ventilation. Keep the
windows open for five to 10 minutes a day to remove these gases.
Ideally, use a whole house filtration system. One of the best I've
found so far is the Pure & Clear Whole House Water Filtration
System, which uses a three-stage filtration process — a micron sediment
pre-filter, a KDF water filter and a high-grade carbon water filter10 — to filter out chlorine, disinfection byproducts (DBPs) and other contaminants.
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