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2B people don't have safe drinking water: what does this mean for them?

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Re: 2B people don't have safe drinking water: what does this mean for them?

#41

Post by BowBun »

orsenthil wrote: post #21
londons_explore wrote: post #16

Most of these people are not cut off from the world. You will find a coca-cola bottle in the same village! The solution is to tell them why clean water matters , and provide them a cheap way of making dirty water pretty clean . Ie. a water filter. The cheapest water filters, costing perhaps $10 and able to filter a family drinking water supply for years, will still eliminate most concerning contamination in water. Th…

> Most of these people are not cut off from the world. You will find a coca-cola bottle in the same village! This! And this has been true for the last 40 years, when more people didn't have access to water. This just shows how a few people care for the rest, and majority fall along. This was with Cola-Cola from 1980s. Today, it is with information. More people have access to bad news via WhatsApp (like Coke) than edu…

Great comparison. I'm willing to bet that Coke was happy to watch water scarcity continue to drive more people to drink their products. Likewise modern news organizations care less and less about the quality of the news, and more about engagement which results in junk which manipulates emotions.

Re: 2B people don't have safe drinking water: what does this mean for them?

#42

Post by andrewmcwatters »

londons_explore wrote: post #16

Most of these people are not cut off from the world. You will find a coca-cola bottle in the same village! The solution is to tell them why clean water matters , and provide them a cheap way of making dirty water pretty clean . Ie. a water filter. The cheapest water filters, costing perhaps $10 and able to filter a family drinking water supply for years, will still eliminate most concerning contamination in water. Th…

> years

In Phoenix, I've never seen a water filter last because our hard water eats them all up faster than in other places in the US. There must be an ideal combination of filtration systems that others use here and elsewhere that I'm not aware of that last for as long as they do, but standard consumer ones that bring TDS down to zero have very little lifespan here.

I can't imagine what difficulties exist in areas with access to clean water, but I can't expect them to all also be easily filtered outside of processes like solar distillation or something else.

Re: 2B people don't have safe drinking water: what does this mean for them?

#43

Post by stronglikedan »

KingMob wrote: post #39
londons_explore wrote: post #16

Most of these people are not cut off from the world. You will find a coca-cola bottle in the same village! The solution is to tell them why clean water matters , and provide them a cheap way of making dirty water pretty clean . Ie. a water filter. The cheapest water filters, costing perhaps $10 and able to filter a family drinking water supply for years, will still eliminate most concerning contamination in water. Th…

> tell them why clean water matters Wow, that's patronizing. Most people without access to clean water are NOT tribes who have never contacted the outside world before. They're people in places with bad infrastructure, poverty, corruption, Nestle lobbying, etc.

I'm sure it's applicable to some. This is too big and widespread a problem for one-size-fits-all anything.

Re: 2B people don't have safe drinking water: what does this mean for them?

#44

Post by carlosjobim »

londons_explore wrote: post #7

We also need to think about uses of water. Water is used for drinking (~2 liters/day)... Contamination here really matters. Waker is used for cooking (~20 liters per day). Contamination here matters somewhat, since some forms of pollutants will be rendered harmless by cooking. Water is used for washing (~200 liters per day). Contamination here matters a little too, because washing water can touch something which gets…

I'm trying to understand your examples. Those are absolutely massive quantities of water you're mentioning for cooking, washing and farming.

I assume that you cook and wash yourself like everybody else, and have a basic understanding on how much for example a head of cabbage should be watered each day. So what do you mean with these numbers?

Re: 2B people don't have safe drinking water: what does this mean for them?

#45

Post by sophacles »

jp57 wrote: post #15

I'm disappointed that the article conflates together "safe" and "convenient". Out of the 2B who "don't have safe drinking water", About 1.75B have an "improved source", which is a source that "is not free from contamination, [or] is not on the premises, or [is not] always available." Of course we should work toward a world where everyone has clean, highly available water inside the home, but by conflating "unsafe" wi…

I guess technically "convenient" is an accurate word. Yet.... "avialable" often includes half the family walking hours each way every day to fetch water, depriving the children a chance to be educated, and adults a chance to earn income or take care of other necessities. In a lot of these regions there is a fairly high risk of being attacked on your daily water journey... I'd consider a water source that exposes me to murder an unsafe water source.

Also since you're quibbling "on the premises" its worth noting that an outside spigot/cistern/well on the property counts, as does a common water source in the courtyard of a multifamily dwelling. Depending on how the property laws, typical housing layout, and culture work in an area, that could even mean an entire village having a well - I'd have to dig into that definition more thought. That's different than "inside the home" and it's fancy "turn on the kitchen sink for a glass of water" implications.

Re: 2B people don't have safe drinking water: what does this mean for them?

#46

Post by mattmaroon »

KingMob wrote: post #39
londons_explore wrote: post #16

Most of these people are not cut off from the world. You will find a coca-cola bottle in the same village! The solution is to tell them why clean water matters , and provide them a cheap way of making dirty water pretty clean . Ie. a water filter. The cheapest water filters, costing perhaps $10 and able to filter a family drinking water supply for years, will still eliminate most concerning contamination in water. Th…

> tell them why clean water matters Wow, that's patronizing. Most people without access to clean water are NOT tribes who have never contacted the outside world before. They're people in places with bad infrastructure, poverty, corruption, Nestle lobbying, etc.

I mean yes but they also still don’t think it matters. It’s a thing they consider just part of life. It’s like how a lot of Americans don’t wash hands, a lot of the world still smokes, etc.

You find plenty of democracies around the world with unsafe drinking water and no politicians really talking about it because the people just don’t care.

Re: 2B people don't have safe drinking water: what does this mean for them?

#47

Post by carlosjobim »

pluto_modadic wrote: post #25
londons_explore wrote: post #7

We also need to think about uses of water. Water is used for drinking (~2 liters/day)... Contamination here really matters. Waker is used for cooking (~20 liters per day). Contamination here matters somewhat, since some forms of pollutants will be rendered harmless by cooking. Water is used for washing (~200 liters per day). Contamination here matters a little too, because washing water can touch something which gets…

"far cheaper than providing large amounts" that doesn't factor in the cost of plumbing an entire town with 3 sets. remember photos of the tangle of wires when DC vs AC fought? It's more expensive especially for a suburb of single family homes to plumb in sewers and water mains (long distances for low flows), vs plumbing in duplexes and apartments. having a secondary water system (e.g., purple pipes / grey water), for…

You don't need any plumbing for safe drinking water. It can be delivered to the customer in gallons and bottles. That's how it's done in large parts of the world.

Re: 2B people don't have safe drinking water: what does this mean for them?

#48

Post by mattmaroon »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #42
londons_explore wrote: post #16

Most of these people are not cut off from the world. You will find a coca-cola bottle in the same village! The solution is to tell them why clean water matters , and provide them a cheap way of making dirty water pretty clean . Ie. a water filter. The cheapest water filters, costing perhaps $10 and able to filter a family drinking water supply for years, will still eliminate most concerning contamination in water. Th…

> years In Phoenix, I've never seen a water filter last because our hard water eats them all up faster than in other places in the US. There must be an ideal combination of filtration systems that others use here and elsewhere that I'm not aware of that last for as long as they do, but standard consumer ones that bring TDS down to zero have very little lifespan here. I can't imagine what difficulties exist in areas w…

I have a condo in Phoenix, put in a waterdrop RO filter. I change them on the manufacturers schedule, no issues. The TDS was really high before, but I got over 99% reduction. Not 0 but really close.

Re: 2B people don't have safe drinking water: what does this mean for them?

#49

Post by squigz »

stronglikedan wrote: post #43
KingMob wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tell them why clean water matters Wow, that's patronizing. Most people without access to clean water are NOT tribes who have never contacted the outside world before. They're people in places with bad infrastructure, poverty, corruption, Nestle lobbying, etc.

I'm sure it's applicable to some. This is too big and widespread a problem for one-size-fits-all anything.

Well GP listed like, 6 things. I have to agree with them that the vast majority of people without access to water are not so disconnected from the world that they don't understand the important of clean water.

Re: 2B people don't have safe drinking water: what does this mean for them?

#50

Post by Exoristos »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #29
untech wrote: post #11

I didn’t find this in the article, and am still confused. Do they boil their water? Doesn’t it help with disease? There was one example of the family spending time collecting firewood equal to time collecting water, but boiling was still missing. Also, what about filtering? You can do it with charcoal. I was raised to both filter and boil tap water before drinking. I don’t understand why these aspects are not mention…

IIRC, heating water to the boiling point is hugely fuel intensive and making charcoal is also hugely fuel intensive plus time consuming.

I'd be interested in learning more about places where people can't afford a fire.
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