I was aghast to find that recently there was a large-scale demand that the government of West Bengal, India provide water filters to all the parts of the state that reported cases of arsenic poisoning.

There are many regions in the state, where the arsenic content of water is alarmingly beyond the acceptable levels. This has resulted in a serious health crisis, with many people having already perished.

I strongly feel this popular demand should be met at the earliest to protect more lives from withering.

Were you searching for a water filter that would make fresh water out of muddy undrinkable water?

Villagers in many villages of the western states of India, like Maharashtra, are having fresh water to drink for the first time, thanks to the water filters introduced by TRDDC, the Pune - based R&D division of Tata Consultancy Services.
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It is just as good as any of the shiny, expensive water filters The materials used in this filter are rice-husk ash (RHA), pebbles, ordinary Portland cement, plastic containers, nylon mesh and sand.

Field trials have been carried out and the filter has been cleared by the Maharashtra government’s Public Health Laboratory at Pune. In comparison with the commercially available water filters, the RHA-based water filter performs better, trapping bacteria, eliminating turbidity and providing an efficient rate of filtration

Three cheers to TCS for their services to mankind!!

The flimsy empty petrol tin has it's own use. Let me tell you as to how can you utilize a petrol can to the utmost creative and useful level.

A Canadian company has made water filters from empty petrol can. Some small holes were punched in the bottom which were covered with a piece of cloth and the can was then filled with sand. Four workers would pool their weekly allowance of washing water. They would take it in turns each day to go first. After a wash and shave the basin was emptied into the filter. Moments later the water flowed back to the basin as clear as crystal.
The process could be repeated for 7 days before the smell of the filtered water became intolerable.

Sometimes, even the simplest of things can be used for most complicated of uses.

I always had the feeling that humans are the only beings who can filter water. But how wrong was I.

Scientists studying animal behavior in Senegal say they have discovered colonies of chimpanzees and baboons which have learnt to filter water. At a seminar in Paris organized by the Society for Primatology, the scientists suggested that the filtration process worked out by animals made the water safer to drink.

They found that the apes were avoiding muddy pools in dried out river beds, and instead were taking the water from holes they had dug in the sand nearby.

Tests showed that the muddy water contained germs that made it unfit to drink, while the water filtered through the sand was germ-free.

Do you trust the water coming in the tap enough to drink it without filtering it? I don't think so. Similarly, people all around you do not want to risk drinking unfiltered water. This was one of the reasons why the residents of USA suffered due to lack of water, when Hurricane Katrina hit the coasts.

This problem could have been largely solved had adequate supply of water filters been assured by the disaster management teams working there. If these teams had taken the prerogative to provide water filters, then the people would have at least got water to drink.

Disaster management teams - are you listening?