Michael Pritchard: How to make filthy water drinkable

1,957,998 views ・ 2009-08-04

TED


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00:18
Good morning everybody.
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00:20
I'd like to talk about a couple of things today.
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00:22
The first thing is water.
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00:24
Now I see you've all been enjoying the water
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that's been provided for you here at the conference,
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over the past couple of days.
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And I'm sure you'll feel that it's from a safe source.
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But what if it wasn't?
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00:36
What if it was from a source like this?
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Then statistics would actually say
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that half of you would now be suffering
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with diarrhea.
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I talked a lot in the past about statistics,
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and the provision of safe drinking water for all.
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00:56
But they just don't seem to get through.
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00:59
And I think I've worked out why.
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01:01
It's because, using current thinking,
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the scale of the problem
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just seems too huge to contemplate solving.
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So we just switch off:
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us, governments and aid agencies.
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01:17
Well, today, I'd like to show you
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that through thinking differently,
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the problem has been solved.
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01:26
By the way, since I've been speaking,
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another 13,000 people around the world
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are suffering now with diarrhea.
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01:34
And four children have just died.
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01:39
I invented Lifesaver bottle
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because I got angry.
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01:43
I, like most of you, was sitting down, the day after Christmas in 2004,
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when I was watching the devastating news
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of the Asian tsunami as it rolled in,
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playing out on TV.
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01:54
The days and weeks that followed,
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people fleeing to the hills,
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01:58
being forced to drink contaminated water
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or face death.
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That really stuck with me.
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Then, a few months later,
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Hurricane Katrina slammed into the side of America.
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"Okay," I thought, "here's a First World country, let's see what they can do."
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02:17
Day one: nothing.
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02:20
Day two: nothing.
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02:23
Do you know it took five days to get water to the Superdome?
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02:28
People were shooting each other on the streets
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for TV sets and water.
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That's when I decided I had to do something.
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Now I spent a lot of time in my garage, over the next weeks and months,
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and also in my kitchen -- much to the dismay of my wife. (Laughter)
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02:44
However, after a few failed prototypes,
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I finally came up with this, the Lifesaver bottle.
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02:54
Okay, now for the science bit.
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02:56
Before Lifesaver, the best hand filters were only capable
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of filtering down to about 200 nanometers.
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03:02
The smallest bacteria is about 200 nanometers.
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03:06
So a 200-nanometer bacteria
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is going to get through a 200-nanometer hole.
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The smallest virus, on the other hand,
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is about 25 nanometers.
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So that's definitely going to get through those 200 nanometer holes.
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03:22
Lifesaver pores are 15 nanometers.
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So nothing is getting through.
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03:30
Okay, I'm going to give you a bit of a demonstration.
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03:32
Would you like to see that?
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03:34
I spent all the time setting this up, so I guess I should.
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03:36
We're in the fine city of Oxford.
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So -- someone's done that up.
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03:41
Fine city of Oxford, so what I've done is I've gone
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03:43
and got some water from the River Cherwell,
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and the River Thames,
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that flow through here. And this is the water.
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03:49
But I got to thinking, you know,
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if we were in the middle of a flood zone
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in Bangladesh, the water wouldn't look like this.
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So I've gone and got some stuff to add into it.
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03:59
And this is from my pond.
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04:01
(Sniffs) (Coughs) Have a smell of that, mister cameraman.
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04:05
Okay. (Laughs) Right.
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We're just going to pour that in there.
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04:12
Audience: Ugh!
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04:14
Michael Pritchard: Okay. We've got some runoff
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from a sewage plant farm.
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So I'm just going to put that in there.
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04:22
(Laughter)
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Put that in there. There we go.
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(Laughter)
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And some other bits and pieces, chuck that in there.
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And I've got a gift here from a friend of mine's rabbit.
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So we're just going to put that in there as well.
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04:39
(Laughter)
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Okay. (Laughter) Now.
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The Lifesaver bottle works really simply.
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You just scoop the water up.
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04:51
Today I'm going to use a jug
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just to show you all. Let's get a bit of that poo in there.
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That's not dirty enough. Let's just stir that up a little bit.
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05:03
Okay, so I'm going to take this really filthy water,
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and put it in here. Do you want a drink yet?
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05:12
(Laughter)
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Okay. There we go.
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Replace the top.
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Give it a few pumps. Okay?
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That's all that's necessary.
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05:29
Now as soon as I pop the teat,
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sterile drinking water is going to come out.
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I've got to be quick. Okay, ready?
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05:40
There we go. Mind the electrics.
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That is safe, sterile drinking water.
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05:46
(Applause)
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05:48
Cheers.
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05:50
(Applause)
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05:53
There you go Chris.
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05:55
(Applause)
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06:00
What's it taste of?
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06:02
Chris Anderson: Delicious.
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06:04
Michael Pritchard: Okay.
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06:07
Let's see Chris's program throughout the rest of the show. Okay?
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06:10
(Laughter)
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06:13
Okay. Lifesaver bottle is used by thousands of people around the world.
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06:18
It'll last for 6,000 liters.
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06:20
And when it's expired, using failsafe technology,
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the system will shut off, protecting the user.
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06:26
Pop the cartridge out. Pop a new one in.
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It's good for another 6,000 liters.
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06:32
So let's look at the applications.
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06:34
Traditionally, in a crisis, what do we do?
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We ship water.
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Then, after a few weeks, we set up camps.
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And people are forced to come into the camps to get their safe drinking water.
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What happens when 20,000 people congregate in a camp?
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Diseases spread. More resources are required.
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The problem just becomes self-perpetuating.
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But by thinking differently,
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and shipping these,
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people can stay put.
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They can make their own sterile drinking water,
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and start to get on with rebuilding their homes and their lives.
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07:13
Now, it doesn't require a natural disaster
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for this to work.
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Using the old thinking, of national infrastructure
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and pipe work, is too expensive.
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07:26
When you run the numbers on a calculator,
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you run out of noughts.
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So here is the "thinking different" bit.
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Instead of shipping water,
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and using man-made processes to do it,
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let's use Mother Nature. She's got a fantastic system.
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She picks the water up from there,
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desalinates it, for free, transports it over there,
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and dumps it onto the mountains, rivers, and streams.
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And where do people live? Near water.
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All we've go to do
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is make it sterile. How do we do that?
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Well, we could use the Lifesaver bottle.
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08:00
Or we could use one of these.
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08:02
The same technology, in a jerry can.
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This will process 25,000 liters of water;
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that's good enough for a family of four,
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for three years.
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And how much does it cost?
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About half a cent a day to run.
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08:21
Thank you.
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08:23
(Applause)
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So, by thinking differently, and processing water
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at the point of use,
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mothers and children no longer have to walk four hours a day
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to collect their water.
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They can get it from a source nearby.
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So with just eight billion dollars,
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we can hit the millennium goal's target
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of halving the number of people
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without access to safe drinking water.
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To put that into context,
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The U.K. government spends about 12 billion pounds
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a year on foreign aid.
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But why stop there?
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With 20 billion dollars, everyone can have access to safe drinking water.
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So the three-and-a-half billion people
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that suffer every year as a result,
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and the two million kids that die every year,
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will live.
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09:23
Thank you.
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09:25
(Applause)
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