My God, how is this possible. I switch on the TV, I hear: "yes, the biggest problem now in Bangladesh, where 100 million people have lost their homes and are sleeping knee-deep in the water, is the lack of fresh and clean drinking water."
It's such a mind-boggling situation: you have way too much rain, but not enough drinking water.
Millions of people are at risk of getting cholera, dysentery, etc... Thousands of children will die of diarrhoea.
So here's my simple idea. Design inflatable platforms, raft like containers, which float ON the water. It rains. The container fills up with moderately clean water. Seal the container, and use as emergency drinking water reservoir.
Put such cheap containers in every village.
SO SIMPLE.
Compare to what you're having now: millions at risk, no clean water, because sewage systems can't take it, water reservoirs have been contaminated and purifying this dirty mix is very costly. Now you need the military to distribute water. Now you need not less than 7 billion in aid, or else thousands will die.
I do not understand this world. Too much water = not enough drinking water. Why?
[I posted this idea before, so you may recognize it, but I destroyed my previous account. Now that floods have arrived in Bangladesh -- a yearly event -- I couldn't withhold myself of posting it again. I really think it makes sense.]-- django, Jul 29 2004 Pressing problem http://ehp.niehs.ni...00/108-2/focus.html [bpilot, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004] Another approach http://www.webzine....oducer/page1898.htmmaybe a floating version of this could be tried [bpilot, Oct 05 2004, last modified Oct 17 2004] it is a noble idea. some aspects to be considered would be : a) ensuring availability of compressed air for inflating the containers. alternatively you can design modular or cellular ones so that human beings can puff easily for inflating like balloons. b) some strong anchoring mechanisms to prevent getting carried away by STRONG water current. it may be noted that if not anchored, there are chances that these may reach some needy persons anywhere downstream or there are chances that these would just go to the bay of bengal.-- vedarshi, Jul 29 2004 Just on this idea -what would happen if you "floated" bubble wrap Would it successfully collect rainwater or could you add something to it so it would?-- tasman, Jul 29 2004 Wasn't there something here about floating the fresh water downstream in something like some inflatable container? Was that this deleted idea?-- RayfordSteele, Jul 29 2004 [RayfordSteele] I think the idea you are thinking of was called Get That Water Above The Clean Drinking Mark, It Can't Be That Hard. Similar solution to the same problem but I can't find it, I think it may have been lost in the recent outage.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jul 30 2004 [RayfordSteele] u r absolutely right. it was deleted because the discussion had taken wrong turn.-- vedarshi, Jul 30 2004 Good karma for [django].
A couple links.-- bpilot, Aug 01 2004 [pmboy] Wasn't the idea to get clean water rather than "stop the flood"?-- tasman, Aug 02 2004 "Another Approach" was an interesting link, [bpilot], especially since it even cites the device's potential usefulness in Bangladesh. It would have been very useful in last week's discussion of arrayed solar distillation of seawater, as well. On a separate note, I also liked the the sidebar linked reference to Bayer's other new product: an innovative luminescent film which can be used to illuminate the darkest recesses of women's handbags, another popular halfbakery idea.-- jurist, Aug 02 2004 [pmboy] A bucket will catch water, but a bucket full of water will not float.
I've seen plenty of TV footage of Bangladesh floods with groups of people stranded on tiny amounts of dry land, along with livestock, etc. I think the real benefit of django's idea is that water can be colleted and stored in a way that does not require more of the dry land - providing anchoring problems, etc are overcome.-- afrocelt, Aug 02 2004 Inflatable stuff is weak. One good goat gnawing and there it goes. Giant monolithic reservoirs are the answer. These huge structures would tower over the landscape, impervious to weather. Each would last 4-5000 years. People could lash themselves to its sides during typhoons. Special sieves over the top would keep waterfowl from entering and fowling the water. An ancient evil shoggoth would dwell inside the tank also, to help keep troublemakers out.-- bungston, Aug 02 2004 //but its biggest flaw is lack of an anchor//
Yes, [bwv61], but perhaps I can step in on this one and go to bat for [django]: "And the Lord said, let there be rope, so that My children shall have something to weave after baldness sets in; and let there be rocks, so that the rope will have something to be attached to. And it was good."
Perhaps the compressed air issue could be solved with some sort of simple gas generator? A tug of a string, a quick chemical reaction, gas is produced (nitrogen, oxygen, CO2, whatever), and voila! It inflates AND floats.-- shapu, Aug 02 2004 Auggh....
Fixed. Thanks.-- shapu, Aug 02 2004 +, oh I voted already.-- po, Aug 02 2004 random, halfbakery