Innovative Solution

safe water, POU, cost-effective, local, CWF, filtration, ceramic, PfP, disaster, rural, urban

technical

Alternative technological solution

Health and safe water education

Local solution to rural water sanitation

The Millennium Declaration (2000) and commitment by the International community show a political will for increasing access to safe drinking water. Solutions at the federal and local level are making progress but dependent on many factors. Laying pipe for access to water needs a large capital investment and takes a large population to justify the investment in construction and a suitable method of treatment. WHO, UNICEF, IRC and others are seeking local solutions at point of use, such as the ceramic water filter made locally, from local materials. This method of POU water treatment developed by Potters for Peace (PfP) creates a local solution of creating a ceramic filter from local materials which the general population have been using for water storage for many generations making it quickly accepted by users.  This solution achieves the goal of rapidly increasing access to clean water at the lowest possible cost through a local solution.

Currently Potters for Peace has helped build factories through alliances with partners in country, for the following factories;  Tanzania (3), Nigeria, Kenya (2), Ghana (2), Rwanda, Ethiopia, Yemen, Benin, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Myanmar (8), Philippines, Pakistan, Cambodia (3), Laos, China, Ecuador, Peru (2), Colombia (2), Nicaragua (3), Guatemala (2), El Salvador, Honduras, Cuba, Dominican Republic (2), Mexico, Senegal, Somaliland. An estimated 2,500,000 PfP ceramic water filters have been made and distributed throughout the world since 1998. We help to build a small factory of a filter press, kiln and shelving to produce a ceramic water filter made from local clay and a burnout material, i.e. sawdust, coffee husks. When the pot filter is fired, the sawdust is burned out leaving microscopic pores to filter water. A coating of colloidal silver is added making the filter 99.98% effective in filtering out water-borne protozoa and bacteria. The finished filter costs $15-20 to purchase and can last up to 10 years or more depending on turbidity of water.

The concept of the ceramic water filter  (CWF) has been in use for centuries. Ron Rivera, past Director for Potters for Peace, was aware of the alternative technology of making filters by clay artisans but knew that you could not guarantee safe drinking water without standardizing the process. With Manny Hernandez, an Industrial Design Professor with Northern Illinois University, they developed a press to make the pot filter and determined the correct formula and standardization of materials to get a standard pore size to filter out bacteria and protozoa to a safe level determined by university studies and governmental laboratories. The first factory was set up in Managua, Nicaragua as a response to Hurricane Mitch in 1998 after the hurricane had destroyed the water system throughout the country. Orders were placed by UNICEF, IRC, OXFAM and others to distribute filters. Through these organizations, other countries requested factories to make the CWF. We partner with organizations in the country we work in, to build the factory, manage, sell and use the CWF the locally. They also are trained in education and follow up to ensure Best Practices are used in making a quality filter and follow up in the communities served to ensure use and implementation. We stay in contact with factories long term to help negotiate problems if they arise and direct universities to study results of home use in communities around the world. More than 40 university studies have been done on the PfP ceramic water filter.

We are planning on assisting partners to build factories in Peru, Mexico, and Nicaragua in 2012. We are working with partners to seek ways to commercialize the product that it be easily available in a wider area in the region the factories are built. This in turn will create a bigger base educated as to need for safe water and seeking out an available, cost-effective, local solution in rural and urban areas. Testing is ongoing at several universities to create from the ceramic water filter a siphon filter that can be easily transported for disaster relief. Also, testing is taking place on arsenic removal and virus removal which has proved to be a problem world wide.

It’s been established that safe water is a human right, yet millions of people have access to water yet don’t have access to safe water. This basic human right remains beyond the reach of up to one third of the world’s population and the percentage much higher for the world’s poor. The areas hardest hit are the impoverished rural developing regions.   We all know the statistics on the affects of water-borne diseases on education, life expectancy, infant mortality and economic development. The Point of Use solution reaches out beyond governmental solutions to where the pipe line hasn’t been laid, to the poorest of the poor, and let’s them rapidly gain access to safe water filtration and storage in rural and urban areas as governments work for solutions. The CWF addresses the implementation of making safe water easily available, affordable and effective.

The added value of the ceramic water filter as a solution to gaining access to safe drinking water in poor, rural areas is that the materials are easily available locally. Working with clay is a global skill that reaches back many generations so the skill level is present in artisans world-wide to easily produce the filter locally, as well as providing local employment. The general population is accustomed to drinking from clay water receptacles so it has a fast adaptation rate. The CWF also addresses safe water storage as most drinking water collected gets recontaminated in storage containers in the home. The investment level of a factory, including land is about $15,000-$20,000 but a factory can produce 12,000+ filters per year bringing safe drinking water to approximately 72,000 people per year. This amortizes out to a fraction of a penny for a liter of water over 10 years on a $20 investment in a filter. A factory can produce filters as long as there is clay and there is a never ending supply of it. With a local factory present, replacement parts are easily available to families keeping the CWF sustainable over the long term.

What we look for in regions that have a filter factory in follow up studies is laboratory results of water from a number of used filters to check water quality. We look at the condition of filters in the homes, data from health centers on number of cases of diarrhea in the community, health statistics and surveys of end users, number of missed work or school days by end users, what is the care and use practices in the home, where do they collect their water, how many filters are still in use. We have seen 60-80% reduction in water borne diseases in communities with filters after a year of the filter being present in communities. Filters after 10 years are still testing adequate for drinking water quality levels. The biggest reason for a filter to become inactive in a home is from breakage due to accidents or children.

We follow up on filter factories checking on the number of filters they are producing, are they following safety standards, quality testing each filter before leaving the factory, number sold, how are they selling them and to whom. Do they need additional training.

The CWF as a solution to bringing safe water to rural and urban developing areas should be looked at seriously by government organizations as a solution to the problem in rural and semi-urban areas not reached by present large-scale solutions, such as city systems. The government of Bolivia, with assistance from UN DP, is planning on building 9 factories in all states of the country to maximize the coverage of citizens getting safe drinking water. Other governmental organizations work in development and disaster relief, such as the European Union, Luxembourg, Denmark and the CWF factory is a good economic investment in long term, sustainable production of filters as well as a cheap, easily transported option to quickly improving water quality in disaster relief.

The replication of a factory has been standardized so that the filter press and other materials are locally available in all locations. With 3 weeks of a PfP trainer working at a new factory, they are producing filters quickly. After testing by a governmental laboratory the filters are getting out in to the community within 30 days of set up. Best Practices guidelines for production have been recently published by the health NGO, PATH, outlining best practices in all aspects of production and materials to insure a quality, effective filter with guidelines established by factories, universities and international health organizations.

The CWF is a way for Non-governmental Organizations to address the problem of giving affordable access to safe water as a means of delivering health and sanitation education, distribution of filters and follow up to communities world wide.

The CWF factory is an excellent investment to Social Entrepreneurs and Social Investors as the cost benefit is excellent with very low one time investment in a long term solution.

To upscale this solution, what is needed as always is capital and interested investors in the technology. The technology has grown through word of mouth but we would benefit from recognition and acceptance by such organizations and forums, such as the World Water Forum to bring attention to the technology for more governmental investment in rural areas. We need more trainers to go to sites for set up, we need funds for follow up visits to factories to insure quality control, and there are many interested, qualified partners that would benefit from financial assistance from investors to build factories in their areas.

With 12 years of promoting the technology of the ceramic water filter and building factories, we have learned that the partners operating the factory need to make a significant investment in the process of building the factory in order to buy in to the process and quality needed for good quality filters and to keep the factory operating long term. It works best if the partner has entrepreneurial experience in order to maximize the marketing of the filters. Many people have tried setting up factories on their own and none that I know of have succeeded without assistance from a Potters for Peace Trainer on site for several weeks. A crucial part of the process is the formula of clay/burnout material for pore size and quality control. We also recommend that the filters not be given away as it takes on the perception of low value since it was given away and the components become more valuable for picking beans, ect. Education and follow up are a necessity to quantify results and to reinforce the means to good family health in order to know that the CWF is working as a solution to the problem in the community.

To build a factory it takes a small amount of land, water, covered work area, shelving, preferably electricity, but not a necessity, some type of road, dirt or otherwise, to move the filters out into the region. The cost of a press is about $1,200, set of aluminum molds $950, kiln $1,200, hammer mill $800, clay mixing machine $600, clay $200, saw dust $100, colloidal silver $300 (for 7,000 filters), plastic buckets $800, spigots $200, various tools in set up $200, thermocouple for firing $250, airfare for a trainer, room and board of trainer at site, stipend of $300/day for trainer for other travel expenses as all trainers are volunteers to our organization. Hammer mill and clay mixing machines are used only in factories with electricity. There are other simpler, but more labor intensive means of milling the clay and mixing when the factory has no electricity.

The main factors of success are using workers that have worked in clay before. Upon opening the factory, take the time to introduce the ceramic water filter to NGOs that work in the area as they will be key customers. Work with governmental health and water agencies to get certification and acceptance as a solution to gaining affordable access to safe water in outlying areas.

We are working with UN DP to build 2 factories on the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua in 2012. The water quality is very bad and the population is very isolated and poor, with a mountain range slowing down access to affordable options to gain safe water from other sources. Factories are needed closer to the communities in need. Stove Team International is financing a factory in Fiji in 2012 and a new factory is in the process of opening in the next 2 months in Chiapas, Mexico.

Potters for Peace website:     www.pottersforpeace.org

FaceBook: Potters for Peace

Contact persons:

1) Beverly Pillers   (Nicaragua)    email: bevpillers10@gmail.com        011-505-8454-6591

2) Kaira Wagoner  (US)   email: pottersforpeace@gmail.com      704-351-7380

On our website are copies of some of the studies completed on the ceramic water filter.

http://s189535770.onlinehome.us/pottersforpeace/?page_id=25

Check out YouTube under the category:     PfP ceramic water filter

You will find several videos on the production of the filter.