The STAG Water Filtration System
The UN’s Water for Life decade (2005-2015) appears to have become relegated as the world continues to focus on energy, climate change and oil dependency. Since the end of the second world war the global population has risen nearly threefold and continues to rise at an alarming rate. With 70% of all the earths fresh water being used for crop irrigation, increasing strain is bring placed on our fresh water supplies. Rapid urbanisation and burgeoning living standards have increased contamination in both surface and groundwater, reducing our global fresh water bank. Even now there are 5 million deaths per year from water related illnesses and patients occupy 50% of all hospital beds in developing countries. Thousands die daily from diarrhoea, typhoid, cholera, and a range of other diseases. However this is nothing compared to the catastrophe that lies just a generation away as clean water supplies diminish further.
Jim Rae, a former senior manager with North Lanarkshire Council where, amongst other engineering disciplines was responsible for swimming pool purification processes, has felt for some time now that the international funding targets are not in line with the basic needs of the vast majority of Africans. ‘Water is what every villager I have ever met has said to me and I have spoken to thousands of them, men women and children - they want it, they need it and they will have better lives with it.’ He believes that clean drinking water combined with better sanitation and hygiene will massively cut Sub-Saharan African medical bills by eliminating waterborne illnesses. Having installed many water points in The Gambia, Malawi and elsewhere over the last decade he has come to realise that the groundwater being pumped through the many boreholes installed by global charities and local organisations is contaminated - people were becoming ill and dying from these charitable offerings.
This contamination is caused by bacteria, viruses and parasites. The bacteria such as e-coli and cryptosporidium come from both wild and domestic animals, from pit latrine soak-aways, person to person transfer, from water borne diseases which leaks into the groundwaters or directly deposited into wells and streams. Deforestation and heavy rains are now exposing hitherto buried minerals such as arsenic and cyanide and these are also contaminating every water source. Even rainfall can have acid contamination so no water source is safe now. Those with a reduced immune system because of infections through the likes of Malaria or HIV/AIDS will quickly succumb to diarrhoea, dehydration and stomach problems.
Jim has a lot to say about boreholes – ‘A whole book could be written here - I went around hundreds of villages in Malawi and visited many more boreholes drilled by well known charities near clinics and health centres and village centres and without exception I saw poor workmanship, badly sited boreholes eg too close to latrines, inferior pipes and materials, no records of depths, no water tests, no manuals. Some inexperienced operatives who were appointed to oversee these installations had little or no knowledge of the engineering or water chemistry required in obtaining clean, safe water from boreholes. Jim is concerned about the lack of consistency in testing water conditions and recording results in all of the countries he has worked in.
To make a significant contribution to this situation, Jim has devised an ingenious non-chemical based water filtering device called STAG that safely removes the contaminants from the water. The prototype has been tested at the Glasgow Scientific Laboratory with remarkable results. Feeding virtually raw sewage into it the unit removed 99.999% of all contaminants out. He has even drunk the output in live demonstrations to prove his confidence in the system. Further tests proved its effectiveness with other potential contaminants like the parasitic bilharzia.
Major charities have shown keen interest in the filter units but before they will adopt them they require field tests to be carried out in rural tropical conditions. Prototype testing will be conducted jointly with local hygiene education programmes. Jim has identified 4 villages in Malawi and Kenya that were badly affected by contaminated ground water for this purpose and intends to install and test these filters from March to June this year. A fundraising event has been organised at the Woodside Halls in Glasgow on February 7
to raise money for this purpose. Once trials are completed he will establish a flat pack production unit in Scotland and factories in Sub Saharan Africa from which the STAG will be constructed from the flat packs, installed in-situ, tested and serviced thereby creating jobs in Scotland and Africa in the process.
With future climate change predicting temperature rises of 2-6 celsius, increased frequency of droughts, longer dry seasons and a shorter but more concentrated wet season, crop failure will become common place and animal livestock will have great difficulty adjusting to the new climate conditions. Mass movements of people looking for better environmental conditions are being predicted and could bring people into conflict.
Water scarcity and contamination, exascerbated by continued population increase and climate change paints a grim future for our planet. The UN Water for Life focus dedicated 2008 as the International Year of Sanitation and we propose that the joint provision of clean water and sanitation should become an international development aid priority. Water is indeed Life and Jim has shown what can be done to improve the lives of millions through his remarkable STAG filter.
If you are interested in finding out more about the STAG filter please send an email to paul@waterforall.ltd.uk
Paul Shaw and Alan Ervine
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