BretWagner.com

Found this great info­graphic over at ChangeThis.  Thanks to the folks at Inter­na­tional Net­works Archive.

Too much of the world lacks access to clean drink­ing water. Every minute, seven peo­ple die from bad water or no water.  It’s an unfor­tu­nate truth that as recent as 2003, over 1.3 bil­lion peo­ple have no access to clean water.

Engi­neer Michael Pritchard decided to do some­thing about this — invent­ing the portable Life­saver fil­ter, which can con­t­a­m­i­nated water drink­able in sec­onds.  Check out this amaz­ing demo from TED­G­lobal 2009.

This cutting-edge nan­otech­nol­ogy promises to rev­o­lu­tion­ize how we deliver aid to third world coun­tries and those suf­fer­ing from nat­ural dis­as­ters.  Deliv­er­ing the equip­ment for peo­ple to purify water already avail­able in these stricken areas promises to be faster and cheaper than deliv­er­ing bot­tled water.  What’s more, the bot­tle that Pritchard has designed will clean up to 1,000 gal­lons of water with a sin­gle fil­ter.   An adult human drinks 64 oz. of water a day, which trans­lates into 182.5 gal­lons a year.  A sin­gle bot­tle could pro­vide a per­son with over five years of clean water!
 

But I think the most promise is in the 1.3 bil­lion with­out access to clean drink­ing water on a reg­u­lar basis.  Imag­ine the effects on gen­eral health of those who might now have a means to elim­i­nate dis­ease and sick­ness caused by this con­t­a­m­i­nated water.