How This ‘Drinkable Book’ Will Save Millions of Lives
3.4 million people die each year from water-related diseases, in part because those living with unsafe water conditions aren’t always aware of them. That’s a staggering stat, and a scary truth when you think about how essential and simple it is for you to get your H2O fill. Water Is Life partnered with researchers and scientists at Carnegie Mellon and University of Virginia to work toward a sippable solution. What they came up with is a book — one that does way more than provide info (though it does that too) it’s also drinkable.
The Drinkable Book is a manual that has a couple very important jobs. It acts as a paper PSA, printed with info about water safety, but it’s what the pages are made of that’s going to change the world. Each page is actually a technologically-advanced filter paper that kills over 99.9% of bacteria in water.
You tear out pages of the book, each printed with food-grade ink, put them under the grates in the provided custom filter box, pour in the water and whatever is filtered is safe to drink — agua on par with what you fill up your glass with on the daily.
Each filter can give someone up to 30 days of clean water, with an entire book providing safe drinking water for up to four years. The Drinkable Book costs pennies to produce, especially good news, since it sounds like distributing these and making sure they reach the right people and are used properly will involve an on-the-ground effort to work with communities in need.
From edible water blobs to a Yelp-for-fountains to mailable bottles made from trees, everyone from researchers to startups are putting their muscle (sometimes even crowdfunding campaigns) behind finding sustainable solutions for some of our planet’s greatest problems. To help take Drinkable Books from your Facebook feed to areas who need it, donate to Water Is Life here.
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