17 December 2008
Low-Cost Technology Can Improve Health of Millions in Bangladesh
Universities collaborate on treatment to remove arsenic from drinking water
Littleton, Colorado — Currently, more than 50 million Bangladeshi citizens are being slowly poisoned as they drink contaminated well water that contains arsenic at levels up to 100 times those set by international health guidelines, studies have shown.
“This has been called the largest mass poisoning in human history for over 10 years, and no one has solved it yet,” Susan Amrose Addy, a doctoral candidate at the University of California (UC)–Berkeley, told America.gov.
To bring relief to millions, UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are developing effective, inexpensive arsenic treatment for drinking water in partnership with the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
Their work is supported in part by a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in its People, Prosperity and the Planet (P3) national design competition. (See “U.S. College Students Offer Innovations in Global Sustainability.”)
One arsenic treatment method uses electricity to continuously dissolve iron in the water. Arsenic then attaches to the resulting iron rust and is removed. “The system can be powered by a car battery, solar power or public electrical power,” Addy said.
Using this method, the total annual treatment cost for a six-person household is estimated at less than $9.
During the next two years, the team will set up pilot treatment centers in rural Bangladesh or India, where water will be treated at a central location and distributed to villagers.
Implementing water treatment in a community center owned by the local Bangladeshi government and operated by a private company could give rise to a financial partnership with local entrepreneurs who maintain the system.
“We plan to follow the successful public-private partnership approach of [U.S. nonprofit] WaterHealth International’s community safe water centers in India,” Addy said, “so that ongoing costs can be recovered and local participation is motivated by modest profit incentives.”
In addition to EPA P3 Award funding of $85,000, this project also is supported by other U.S. and international organizations, including the Richard C. Blum Center for Developing Economies, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the French Ingénieurs du Monde and German Schweizerische Studienstiftung.
More information about the Bangladesh water treatment project is available on the UC Berkeley Web site.
