PROBLEM
“Our planet is covered 2/3rds in water and yet, Clean drinking Water is the hardest source to acquire around the world.”
“Did you know that globally 80% of wastewater flows back into the ecosystem?” Around 1/3rd of the world's population drinks water from groundwater resources. Out of this, about 10 % i.e. 300 million people approx obtain water from groundwater resources that are heavily polluted with arsenic or fluoride. According to the WHO, Arsenic contamination of groundwater is a widespread issue across the globe. About 140 million people in 50 countries in South Asia, Africa, and the USA have been drinking water containing arsenic at levels above the WHO provisional guideline value of 10 μg/L. With no proper access to adequate treatment and recycling systems, 1.8 Billion people are subjected to contaminated drinking water with faecal matter risking dangerous diseases like Cholera, Dysentery, Typhoid and Polio. The more we realized the inequality of distribution of clean water, the higher was our drive to make a big change in the current system.
This drive gave way to the Team at Saffy starting their work at a small town in the Egyptian desert where water was sparse. The locals here resorted to drinking water in plastic bottle packaging which added to their problem by destroying the aquatic ecosystem of the area. The well water in this area had contaminated foul smelling water which couldn’t be used. Another major issue we came across is the contamination by heavy metals such as arsenic and cadmium which regular water filtration systems are unable to treat.