A low-tech water filter developed in 1981 by a Guatemalan chemist that helped provide safe water for Nicaraguans after Hurricane Mitch devastated their water supplies is now providing safe water for up to 50,000 Sri Lankan tsunami survivors. The American Red Cross began producing the low-cost and low-tech filter in Sri Lanka in January 2007 and has distributed 10,000 filters so far, according to an IRIN news story dated July 1, 2008.

The clay filter, which holds eight litres of water, is encased in a plastic receptacle with a tap at its base. The Sri Lanka Red Cross Society ensures that the filters are installed and maintained properly and tests water quality during follow up visits. One plant is turning out some 1,000 clay filters a month and the ARC is contracting another pottery factory to produce double the number. Master potter Walter Pothmitiyage oversees the process, at the factory in Kelaniya, a suburb of the capital Colombo.

Ceramic water filters have been promoted as both a way to bring safe water to those who need it most while also providing employment for local potters since 1998 by Potters for Peace, a unique U.S. based nonprofit network of potters, educators, technicians, supporters, and volunteers founded in Nicaragua in 1986 that supports developing world potters; assists with appropriate technologies sustained using local skills and materials; helps preserve cultural traditions; and assists in marketing locally, regionally and internationally. PFP is a member of the World Health Organization’s International Network to Promote Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage.

Originally designed by Dr. Fernando Mazareigos, the Ceramic Water Filter combines the filtration capability of ceramic material with the anti-bacteriological qualities of colloidal silver. This filter has basic, yet impressive, impact on the lives of the rural poor, dramatically decreasing diarrhea, days of school or work missed due to illness, and medical expenses. Since sociologist and potter Ron Rivera of Potters for Peace redesigned the filter to standardize mass production in sixteen small production facilities in fourteen different countries, an estimated 500,000 people have used the filter.

After Dr. Mazariegos of the Central American Industrial Research Institute (ICAITI) developed the filter design in response to the Interamerican Bank’s search for a low cost filter which could be made at the community level and provide potable water to the poorest of the poor, production began in Guatemala, using hand thrown filters from the potters’ community of Rabinal. In 1984, MAP International trained a group of Quechua potters in Cotopari, Ecuador, to produce a filter based on the Mazariegos design. 

In October 1998, after Hurricane Mitch tore through Central America, Potters for Peace began a Ceramic Water Filter production workshop in Nicaragua using the Mazariegos design. In the first six months over 5000 filters were distributed through non-governmental organizations. The workshop, called Filtron, evolved into a worker-owned cooperative and is now a privately owned business.

The CWP is a simple pressed bucket shape 11” wide by 10” deep that is made with a mix of local terra cotta clay and combustibles such as sawdust or rice husks. The simplest press uses a hand-operated hydraulic truck jack and two-piece aluminum mold.

The combustible ingredient, which has been milled and screened, burns out in the firing leaving a network of fine pores. After firing, the filter is coated with colloidal silver. For use, the fired, treated filter element is placed in a five gallon plastic or ceramic receptacle with a lid and faucet.

Filter units are sold for about $10-15 with the basic plastic receptacle. Replacement filter elements cost about $4.00. Production and transportation costs vary from country to country. A basic shop with three or four workers can produce about fifty filters a day.

Potters for Peace has since provided consultation and training in setting up production facilities around the world: Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Ghana, El Salvador, the Darfur region of Sudan, Myanmar, (Burma) and others. Tens of thousands of filters have been distributed worldwide by organizations such as International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, Plan International, Project Concern International, Oxfam and USAID.

PFP’s CWP projects are designed to provide profitable and sustainable employment, with the local retail price of a CWP being set so as to maintain its accessibility to the poor while providing a decent wage for the workers. In 2007 projects were completed in Yemen, Benin, Kenya, Tanzania, Colombia and the Dominican Republic, 2008 plans include filter work in the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and possibly projects in South America, Africa and Asia.

This story was prepared from an IRIN news story dated 1 July 2008, entitled “Sri Lanka: Low-tech clay filters cut disease”, information on the Potters for Peace website, information on the Design for the Other 90% website, and a posting on the Potters without Borders forum. For more information: Ron Rivera, Coordinator of Ceramic Water Filter and Int’l. Projects, Potters for Peace, P.O. Box 3868, Managua, Nicaragua. PFP filter program reports can be found here. Stories about the American Red Cross program in Sri Lanka can be found here and here, and a story about the Red Cross Red Crescent program in Cambodia can be found here.

 

 

For related stories, see:

Solar water disinfection saves lives, money in largest Kenyan slum

Tamil Nadu group finds simple way to purify drinking water


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