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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?

#61

Post by AStonesThrow »

kccqzy wrote: post #59
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In the U.S. you probably don't need TDS to be brought down to zero. My water filtration system at home uses reverse osmosis and brings TDS from 150+ to just 20 and the filter lasts more than a year. (Those that bring TDS down to zero might use deionization instead.)

[dead]

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

#62

Post by londons_explore »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #56
carlosjobim wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But is that more efficient than having one set of plumbing with safe drinking water? I doubt it. Over here the price difference between drinking water from the tap and the cheapest bottled water is a factor ~200.

refillable water bottles are how it's done in most of the world.

You go to a water shop, hand over a bottle, and they give you a one filled with a 15 liters of water, and you'll probably pay around 5 USD cents for that. The water will be filtered (but probably not with reverse osmosis, so there might still be a few viruses and a little lead contamination in it).

The bottles will be filled thousands of times in their lifespan. The cost is higher per liter than piped water, but per person per year it's lower, due to the fact these people perhaps use only 5 liters per day of bottled water, and do clothes washing in non-potable rainwater off their roof.

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

#63

Post by vkou »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #56
carlosjobim wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But is that more efficient than having one set of plumbing with safe drinking water? I doubt it. Over here the price difference between drinking water from the tap and the cheapest bottled water is a factor ~200.

What's actually cheaper is not bottled water, it's a village well.

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

#64

Post by Chris2048 »

londons_explore wrote: post #13
kccqzy wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed that in some countries tap water isn't safe for drinking but good enough for cooking; and everyone buys large plastic 40lb jugs of water for drinking. How much more cost effective would it be to adopt such a system as opposed to safe drinkable tap water?

Non-drinkable tap water is mostly due to water not being available 24x7x365. If a water system is turned off even momentarily, the pressure drops to zero, and sewage and groundwater seep into the water pipes, making it unsafe to drink. Countries with unreliable power grids usually don't have drinkable tap water for that reason. It can also be because the water isn't treated (ie. it is just rainwater in the pipes). Wa…

> sewage and groundwater seep into the water pipes

How does this happen? Are they not sealed?

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

#65

Post by vkou »

Exoristos wrote: post #50
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They can afford it, but fuel and energy costs are the lion's share of their expenses, in a way they aren't in rich countries.

~1/25th of my expenses are spent on paying for energy. I wouldn't think twice about using more of it.

If 1/2th of my expenses were directed towards acquiring energy, that would be a different conversation.

And they can't just go to the forest and get some firewood. Population densities in the developing world in the 21st century are such that even if there is unowned land where you can do that close enough to where you live, it won't sustain your community for very long.

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

#67

Post by refurb »

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…

If you have a source of water, providing purified drinking water is stupid cheap.

It’s the initial infrastructure that requires investment but after that, purification costs fractions of a penny per liter.

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

#68

Post by londons_explore »

carlosjobim wrote: post #44
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?

cooking includes the running tap under which you peel the potatoes, the water you boil the eggs in, etc.

washing includes the 150 liters a washing machine uses or the 100 liters in a bath or shower.[3] Spraying things down with a hose really uses a lot too.

farming is the one with most variance - but some crops have a super high number of liters of water used per kg of crop harvested. 1kg of rice = 5000 liters of water! [4] For things like beef, you really need to include all the water to grow the grass too...

[3]: https://www.ariston.com/en-me/the-comfort-way/news/how-much-...

[4]: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Country-average-water-co...

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

#69

Post by neurostimulant »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #56
carlosjobim wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But is that more efficient than having one set of plumbing with safe drinking water? I doubt it. Over here the price difference between drinking water from the tap and the cheapest bottled water is a factor ~200.

> Over here the price difference between drinking water from the tap and the cheapest bottled water is a factor ~200.

Does it take the cost of building city-wide plumbing installation and the water treatment facility into account? Someone (probably the government) have to pay for it and many 3rd world nations can't afford to pay for them except for a handful of cities (usually the capital city).

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

#70

Post by pfdietz »

What happened to dysfunctional nations in the past was they got absorbed into empires or otherwise subjugated. This put a floor on internal dysfunction.

Today, there's some combination of factors that prevents this from happening to the same extent. A net good, but there's a downside.

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