More than one billion people – one sixth of the world’s population - are without access to safe water supply. One of Belgium’s national radio stations is currently doing a benefit for people in need of drinkable water. Money seems to flow in by the minute, but as for purpose and products, you could wonder what would be a useful investment.

The graduation project that was exposed at Design United from Roelie Bottema would be a nice option according to me. LifeStraw is a personal water purifier that can be used to drink water from sources that under normal circumstances would be deadly. An inventive filtering system makes this possible. Right now the product looks like an oversized straw. With just as little as € 3, you could buy such a LifeStraw which can purify up to 700 litres of water. No I don’t have any stocks in this product, but I just like the idea very much. For your info: I tried it myself and am still alive so.. I’m not talking bullshit. :)

Research proved this was not really a suitable solution for kids below the age of 5, so Roelie came up with a design that alters the interaction and makes it suitable for these youngsters, since it’s still mostly them that die from drinking unclean water.

I couldn’t track much info on this project online, but this scanned print should show the ropes:

On the other hand, the waterpyramid is also an interesting project:

(sorry video is in Dutch only)