Lifestraw Named World-Changing Idea
by Jasmin Malik Chua, Jersey City, USA on 02.27.08
Lifestraw, the portable drinking filtration system, nabbed the top honor in the fifth Saatchi & Saatchi Award for World Changing Ideas last Thursday. Worn around the neck and used like a regular straw, Lifestraw claims to filter 99.9999 percent of bacteria and 98.7 percent of viruses using a halogen-based resin.
Upon receiving the award from Her Royal Highness Princess Badiya of Jordan, which includes $50,000 cash and an equal sum in consultancy work, Lifestraw inventor Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen urged the audience to make the sub-Saharan Africa clean-water crisis as prominent an issue as AIDS relief or global-warming mitigation.
Saatchi's worldwide creative director Bob Isherwood had nothing but high praise for the company. "I think it's an amazing idea, a world-changing idea," he said. "You have such a huge proportion of the world's population that can't drink safe water; 6,000 children a day dying from polluted water. To have a straw that you wear around your neck that you can put in contaminated water and turn it immediately into totally safe water is incredible; it is world-changing."
Other finalists for the award included One Laptop Per Child. ::Creativity Online and ::Saatchi & Saatchi
OK, but how many bacterial cells do you need for an infection? Stupid technology blinding people with big numbers.
what? Joe, are you saying you're in favor of people drinking shit water? I mean, yes they may still catch a cold or something, but hell, I'll take those odds over shit water. And besides, if you were to block 100% of bacteria in everything you eat and drink, the first time someone coughs on you, you could die. Ubergermprotection is a bad thing for the body's natural defenses.
How do you know what people will catch? The problem is that people will use this thing in water they may not otherwise drink thinking it is 'safe' when it is nothing of the kind.
if you ever see anything claiming it's 100% effective, call it out as BS. 100% is statistically not realistic. 99.9999% elimination of bacteria is pretty damn good, way more effective tha a birth control pill in preventing pregnancy, and probably similar to what your municipal water can meet.
Also, gut acid usually handles bacteria pretty well. the chances of 1 bacterium getting into your gut, surviving and making you sick is pretty unlikely unless you have digestive issues and are immune supressed, but I'm not a pathologist, so that's just my informal knowledge.
The only protection of drinking water is to have
fewer people/animals on earth polluting the water.
Zero Population Growth is too sensible to be
taken up by the dunderheaded public - but THINK ! Eventually those water holes will be polluted so heavily that they can't be sucked up thru a straw. And who pays for those straws
and the filters which will soon have to be cleansed/changed/replaced. THINK !
What's with this THINK!
OK, I'm in Africa. And I'm thirsty. Real thirsty. Parched. Im hungry too, but right now Im thirsty. What no Evian? Nope. Someone hands me a cup of water. So I THINK!
Know what I think? I THINK I wish I had one of those damn straws, that's what I THINK!
And if I can;t afford one, know what else I'm thinking? Why doesn't your fat assed country buy me one? Up in the Sudan, you are paying for some spooks to run around and stir up trouble. Just buy me a damn straw. That's what I THINK!
Actually, I would like to pay for those straws and filters. I would also like to own a few of them. If the Lifestraw was sold in western outlets for about ten dollars apiece, with the difference going transportation and marketing and to fund three life straws in developing nations, I bet you'd still tap a good market. The least expensive pump-type filter on the market costs fifty dollars, and they sell quite well. Hikers, campers, survivalists, preparedness advocates, and military service members would all buy this device for ten dollars. I know I'd buy at least three for my household.
Water filtration is a short-term solution for a long-term problem, but there are hell of a lot of people in the world who need that solution now. They really don't have time to sit around waiting for ZPG to take effect.
Boy, talking about not seeing the forest! Something like this seems like it could save many lives. Of course, there are lots of other things that can and should be done to improve water supply, but give the person who invented this thing a break. It is world-changing.
I am kind of skeptical on how this small straw made out polystyrene with halogenated resin, anion exchange resin, and Granular activated carbon inside of it can cure the water of 99.9999 bacteria. Also even if this miracle straw can produce these results the people that really need it wont be able to afford it, because if they could afford they would have a some type of filtration system.
What most people seem to quickly forget is that, whether this is a foolproof technology or not does not matter. It is a HUGE step into the right direction.