LifeStraw

Basics

• A Product by the company Vestergaard (sometimes written as the older name “Vestergaard Frandsen” )
• A Water Filtration Device in the form factor of a small tube one drinks from
• It was an offshoot of the earlier “guinea work pipe” from Dracunculiasis Eradication Efforts which used a tube (sometimes even a reed/piece of cane) and some Nylon cloth
  • While effective for Eradication of Dracunculiasis, there were still the issues of Bacteria (E. Coli), Viruses, and other parasites
  • Pollutants such as those from (untreated/unregulated) Industrial Wastewater are harder to solve via this approach

As a Case Study in Humanitarian Design

Rant by User: Eric

• I was pondering the glut of these/brita filters and other methods in terms of aid over other more Appropriate Materials approaches like Shallow Wells , Multi-Stage filters with elements such as a basic fabric pre-filter (akin to that used to prevent Eradication of dracunculiasis) Slow Sand Filters , Granular Activated Carbon (or the diy equivalent of just high quality charcoal/charcoal dust)
  • Borehole Water Wells and pumps such as the Bush Pump are also worth noting, although i am parenoid about aquifer use since taking that water resources class in college (although to be fair much of the overuse is by agriculture, often for Animal Feed in Intensive (Industrial) Animal Agriculture so not TOO relevant but yeah)
    • Also you have issues like Fossil Aquifers or contamination of the aquifer via shoddy borehole construction, or poor operation/repair (which aren’t problems with methods such as Rainwater Capture , Riverbank Filtration , Shallow Wells , or even Fog Nets / Atmospheric Water Generators etc
• ’’’In reading up on this though’’’, i found a really neat (albeit sometimes’’verbose’’ ) paper:
  • “Fluid technologies: The Bush Pump, the LifeStraw® and microworlds of humanitarian design” By Peter Redfield
• It laid things out all eloquently and i learned some more of the overall history from it which was neat
• At least as per this one paper (so still further digging required and such) the company DOES seem to be doing a decent job “ losing the loop” of the Designer-User Disconnect i rambled about before

Internal Links

• Humanitarian Good / Humanitarian Design
• Water Filtration
• WASH