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SAFESIPP water filtration system could save millions of lives


November 05, 2013

Multitasking is the idea behind SafeSIPP, a water transportation and purification system that has the potential to save millions of lives in the developing world. Created by a group of engineering students at Arizona State University, SafeSIPP, which stands for "sustainable innovative portable purification," solves two problems at once.

The device, consisting of a handle attached to a heavy-duty plastic barrel that rolls along the ground, allows a person to easily transport 30 gallons of water, cutting the amount of time spent hauling water by 75 percent. More importantly, a patent-pending filtration system within the barrel cleans the water as it’s rolled back home.

Contaminated drinking water is a critical public health problem in large portions of Africa, contributing to more than 2 million child deaths per year.

“The statistics are staggering,” says Jared Schoepf, co-founder of SafeSIPP and a doctoral student in chemical engineering at the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. “More than 3,000 children die each day in developing countries because they don’t have access to clean, safe-to-consume water.”

Besides that, says Schoepf, women and children, who are tasked with transporting the water back to their villages, “spend (their) time collecting water every day, instead of where (their) time should be spent – in school.”

SafeSIPP and the nonprofit My Arms Wide Open will be conducting a pilot program in South Africa this fall. SafeSIPP will begin sales to development groups in January 2014.

Article source: The Huffington Post

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