The Hippo Water Roller
Can see Peter Macomber’s The Hippo Roller video at www.serumlab.com
www.metaefficient.com has story about the Hippo Water Roller:
Rain ‘n Roll – The Hippo Water Roller
The HippoRoller is a heavy-duty plastic drum that can be filled upright, then sealed and rolled like a steamroller across rough terrain. The 24-gallon (90L) tank weighs 200 pounds when full, but the rolling drum has a functional weight of just 22 pounds, so virtually anyone can use it. The current design has been tweaked to ease shipping and transportation of the carriers, which are manufactured in Johannesburg, South Africa. They are distributed mainly by local NGOs to communities throughout southern Africa, along with training on water purification and sanitation.
A single HippoRoller can hold a day’s water for an entire family of five. Great potential here to work with RainCatcher systems to help people transport water more easily and efficiently from a central location in a village out to individul homes. And what an improvement to go…
...from this...
...to this! (All photos: HippoRoller.org)
Another simple solution to the water problem: Rain ‘n Roll.
For more information, visit the HippoRoller website at www.HippoRoller.org.
Read more: Africa, children, HippoRoller, Johannesburg, NGO, purification, sanitation, South Africa, water tanks
Los Angeles Times article: A global clean-water shortage, November 10, 2006.
A global clean-water shortage
A U.N. agency report calls for action to save lives and energize economies by boosting supplies and sanitation.
By Robyn Dixon, Times Staff Writer
November 10, 2006
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA — While people in wealthy suburbs of Africa use water to maintain lush lawns and fill swimming pools, many slum dwellers struggle to obtain the crucial resource and pay much more per gallon for what little of it they can get, according to a United Nations Development Program report calling for an end to “water apartheid.”
At the same time, dirty water is the second-leading cause of death among children globally, after respiratory infections. It kills 1.8 million children younger than 5 each year, more than do HIV/AIDS, malaria, war or traffic accidents, says the U.N. report released Thursday in Cape Town.
“In the year 2015 they plan to send a spaceship to Jupiter to search for water, yet in Africa or India we can’t get water to people who need it,” Kevin Watkins, the report’s author, said at a briefing for media in Johannesburg.
The report’s main contention is that if countries increase access to clean water and sanitation simultaneously, the rates of child survival in developing countries can rocket “almost overnight,” Watkins said. Globally, 2.6 billion people have no access to proper sanitation. The 1.1 billion people who don’t have clean water use about 1.3 gallons a day.
“It is hard to find anything that has a greater impact on human life than water,” Watkins said.
In cities such as Dar es Salaam, capital of Tanzania, people pay more for water than do New Yorkers, Watkins said. The water and sanitation crisis in sub-Saharan Africa slowed economic growth by 5% of gross domestic product per year, more than the region receives in foreign aid, the report says. A big increase in spending on water and sanitation would pay for itself in economic growth.
“No other investment could bring greater benefits,” Watkins said.
Collecting water is a colossal waste of labor, he said, with the burden falling overwhelmingly on women and girls. Sub-Saharan African women spend about 40 billion hours a year walking and queuing to collect water.
Some countries spend much more on their military than on water.
In Pakistan, where diarrhea caused by dirty water kills 118,000 people each year, the government spends 0.1% of its budget on water and sanitation. It spends 47 times that on the military. India, where 450,000 die of diarrhea annually, spends eight times more on its military than on water resources, and Ethiopia, which has one of the highest rates of infant mortality due to lack of clean water and sanitation, spends 10 times more on the military.
The global cosmetics industry is $200 billion.
Read more: Africa, AIDS, Cape Town, Dar es Salaam, dirty water, Ethiopia, India, Johannesburg, malaria, Pakistan, sanitation, South Africa, Tanzania, United Nations
