Clean the water

[Plane]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4048719.stm

Sodis (Solar Water Disinfection Process).

There are several stages to Sodis. Firstly, a clean, two-litre bottle needs to be filled up to three-quarters of its volume with water.
 
The bottle is shaken for 20 seconds to oxygenate the water. Then, the rest of the bottle is filled and the top screwed on.
 
 
It is then placed on a rooftop in direct sunlight for six hours. The ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the Sun's rays eliminates virtually all disease-causing bacteria, viruses and micro-organisms.
 "This method is very efficient if you follow the simple procedures," says Professor Jose Euclides Paternini of the Unicamp University, Sao Paolo.
 
"The Sodis method can be used in many countries, but especially those close to the equator with high solar radiation, and where the population has no access to conventional water treatment."
 
Luiz Barbosa has been a community health worker for 10 years, looking after 118 families in Oroba. He has observed the difference Sodis has made to the health of his community.
 
"The water treatment we are using here in this municipality is Sodis - that is purification through the Sun's rays - and it is working well because the children are healthy, smiling and they're enjoying a healthier life," he explains.
 

[Xavier_Onassis]

I suppose that this was not done previously because of the lack of clear bottles. Clear plastic bottles did not exist until several years ago. Now they are everywhere. Half the trash on the streets of Ecuador and along the highways are discarded plastic bottles.

In Mexico City, no one drank the water. If you did, you tended to get sick. Amoebic dysentery is a very convincing way of learning this.

The water run underground through an ancient subterranean lake, often through ancient lead pipes in an areas frequently affected by tremors and earthquakes, by which ancient Aztec sewage seeped. Then it was pumped to a tank on top of the roof. Some tanks had a lid on them, others did not. Either way, when you looked inside, the sides had a combination of slimy green and black algae on the sides and bottom. If the pump broke down or was not working, the level of the water in the tank dropped, and green, brown and blackish water came out of the faucet.

This method might work in Cuenca, where no one trusts the water, but it would be inadvisable in Mexico City, because there are a lot of nasty minerals in the water as well as bacteria.

In Quito, the water is safe in most of the city, but a lot of people do not trust it. The rich buy bottled water, the poor boil it. Boiled, it has a rather funny taste. I drank tap water, boiled water and bottled water with no ill effects.

[Plane]

I drank from a public fountain in Rome once.

Then I saw a coupple of local children looking at me strangely.

I suppose their mothers had warned them never to drink the tap water.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Here is the truth about all public fountains.

The water spewed from a public fountain does not come from the city water source and then goes down the drain.

No no no.

City employees fill the fountain, then they turn on a pump. The same water circulates until they clean that fountain and replace the water with more water. In a few cases, there is a gizmo that puts a bit of fresh water in each day to compensate for splashing out and evaporation.

Fountain water can contain several weeks of pigeon poop, hobo loogies, contamination from the atmosphere and germs from the sore feet of tourists and others.

It is always unwise to drink from a public fountain. I mean ornamental fountains in the park, not water fountains, which might be safe.

[Plane]

This was a tap water sort of fountain, intended for drinking.

But, I learned that most Europeans distrust the municipal water .

[Xavier_Onassis]

I have drunk from public water fountains in the US and Spain and England and suffered no ill effects.

In my home town in Missouri, there was a water fountain at each of four corners of the town square. In the 1950's two were labeled "WHITE" and two were labeled "COLORED". In the mid 1960's they took the labels off of the fountains. In the 1969, they removed them. Last time I was there, there was just one fountain, with a plaque about about the Civil Rights struggle and how it had been wrong to have segregated water fountains. But it did not work.

Like some Europeans, lots of Americans here in Miami do not trust the water, and spend a lot of money and effort on lugging jugs of water around. The best capitalism can do is supply a gallon of water for 69¢. I imagine that the cost of manufacturing the jug is under a dime. You can get one refilled at the cheapest dispensing machine for 25¢.

I am pretty sure that the water after WWII in Europe was not reliable. Perhaps that is why you noted this reaction.

If you just pour the water into a pot and let it sit for an hour, all the chlorine taste goes away.

People I know who always insist on buying drinking water think nothing about filling ice cube trays from the tap. I never bother to point out that this makes no sense, since freezing probably does not kill all the possible bacteria and certainly will not remove harmful chemicals.

I don't point this out because then it is even more expense and effort lugging jugs of water around. If Miami water is bad for me, it is a very slow killer, as I have been drinking it from the tap since 1976.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The Solis website describes this process in great detail. It will clearly save many lives.

Before clear plastic bottles were available, distilled water was mostly sold for use in steam irons. The bottled drinking water industry is largely unnecessary and depends on spreading fear among the members of the public in the US. It was a major business in Mexico City, because the local tap water cannot be depended on due to frequent earthquakes and the fact that the city is built on a former lake bed of ancient ooze and sewage.

[Plane]

Near here a town (Macon) won an award for water quality and as a result a new brewery is being built there.

But I think the popularity of bottled water there is undiminished , the convienience is one part , and the chic of doing as the Europeans do is another part.

I don't think there is really much fear of the water.


On the other hand , Geardia is a miserable infection, those whose well is infected have to have it flushed with clorene.

My ship would fill tanks with tap water in every port , and apply enough clorene to make it safe and awfull.

 

[Xavier_Onassis]

But I think the popularity of bottled water there is undiminished , the convienience is one part , and the chic of doing as the Europeans do is another part.
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It is hardly more convenient to have to go to the store and carry several gallons of expensive water home, rather than just to turn the tap.

I have never heard of anyone claiming that they thought that it was chic to be like a European to buy bottled water.

The main reason people do this is because they are sheep, or because they are afraid of tap water. Advertising appeals to both impulses very well. They even suggest in their ads that buying water from Fiji is somehow ecologically conscious.

Of course, there are many, many people who simply refill the bottle with tap water and freeze it so they can carry cold water with them.

[Plane]

But I think the popularity of bottled water there is undiminished , the convienience is one part , and the chic of doing as the Europeans do is another part.
=============================================================
It is hardly more convenient to have to go to the store and carry several gallons of expensive water home, rather than just to turn the tap.

I have never heard of anyone claiming that they thought that it was chic to be like a European to buy bottled water.

The main reason people do this is because they are sheep, or because they are afraid of tap water. Advertising appeals to both impulses very well. They even suggest in their ads that buying water from Fiji is somehow ecologically conscious.

Of course, there are many, many people who simply refill the bottle with tap water and freeze it so they can carry cold water with them.

Yes, the bottle is the convienient part , and if you have a Brita filter , or just don't mind the tapwater , the bottle can be reused eight or a dozen times.
One company is claiming it is environmentally beneficial to use much less plastic in their thinner bottles, perhaps it is , or perhaps they don't need the bottle to be so durable.
I see pretty good sales of canteens also.

[Xavier_Onassis]

The thinner the bottle, the less it costs to make and the less it weighs, and therefore the less it costs to ship.  On the other hand, the less recyclable it is. A colleague of mine's daughter graduated from Harvard in 2004, and she bought a celebratory bottle of water. She was carrying that same bottle of water around in 2008, when she retired.
In Ecuador a lot of places had the 2 liter tall skinny bottles shown in the SODIS flyers. I suppose that they are better than fatter, shorter bottles for this process.

The poverty in Ecuador is much greater in the countryside than in the cities, but still less than Mexico in the 1960's. The Andes are much more attractive than the Mexican desert. Ecuador still has a lot of tribal Indians wearing feathers and loincloths, but quiet a few are literate. Ecuadorean Public TV does a lot of interviews with all the diverse people and puts on some great documentaries showing each province and region within it.

Mexico has never done anything like that.