Sponsor a Hippo Roller at Project H

Forgive me, but these are the same rollers I saw on PBS (USA) a few years ago for around $2-3 USD. Can anyone tell me why now an item designed by a man to help ease the burden of every day life at a reasonable cost and was originally driven by social responsibility is now $100 per household?? Where is all of this extra money going?? Did I miss something??

LA: when we covered them over a year ago the price was $75 each, I cannot imagine that they ever were proposed at 3 bucks.

This seems innocuous enough, doesn't it? But then I paused and considered something else: as seemingly simple and benevolent as the Hippo Roller is (it will boost the happiness and health of the communities that use it), will it technologically remove a limit to carrying capacity in Africa (scarcity of water)? By quintupling the amount of water that villagers can carry (and, therefore, use), will we be seeing lakes drying up at an even faster rate? I know this seems callous, but does the pro (better standard of living) outweigh the con (more water use and, ultimately, waste)? African villagers have adapted to using as much water as they can carry the old-fashioned way, so would an increase in water-moving capacity engender more wasteful practices? This is the same junction that we in the developed world reached decades or centuries ago, and we went with better standard of living and wasting more water--and now we are seeing the results of it in many places.

Ultimately, I would argue for the roller from the standard of living angle (and the ability to improve sanitation and health), but it's just interesting to note that every upside in our human comfort has an ecological downside.

I seem to recall hearing (sorry, I don't have a citation) that there were actually some significant problems with this in real use -- basically, the barrels require a wide flat path, and don't work well going up and down steep inclines. While I love the idea, it seems like it's (potentially) a case where the designers weren't quite close enough to their subjects, similar to the case of the mosquito nets that were too short to reach the floor.

Sadly, the thing some countries need most is birth control and education. Those two things would solve a lot of problems.

I know I'll catch flack for that, but sadly is true.

In reply to Dymaxion, it occured to me that while initially you're right, the longer these are used for, the flatter the roads will get. Afterall these are essentially the same water-filled lawn-rollers folk use in the west to keep their gardens dead-flat.
And you're right that it's going to be harder to push these up-hill, but if the alternative is dying of dehydration or poisoned water, I'm going to take a little extra effort. Short of loading water into a truck, there's no way to eliminate the need for extra effort to get it over an incline.
Water that you can roll. It doesn't get much simpler. Which is the issue I had with the water-carrying trike mentioned some months back. Too complicated, and too expensive to ever be practical.

thinking of the quality of water that would be transporting in the barrels. i dont know that more of it would be helping anyone.

obviously if they dont have enough water then there will be benifit. and theres better hygene, but again this can be reversed with the source of their water.

this is only a transport method, i think a better way of life is through education and infrastructure. give them food and they might live a day longer, give them a job and they can sustain themselves.

i think its all pointless if the government is corrupt