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Indian tree provides low-cost water purification method for developing world | A low-cost water purification technique that uses seeds from a tree found in Asian countries like India could help drastically reduce the incidence of waterborne disease in the developing world. The procedure, which uses seeds from the Moringa oleifera tree, can produce
a 90.00 percent to 99.99 percent bacterial reduction in previously untreated water.
A billion people across Asia, Africa, and Latin America are estimated to rely
on untreated surface water sources for their daily water needs. Of these, some
two million are thought to die from diseases caught from contaminated water every
year, with the majority of these deaths occurring among children under five years
of age. Michael Lea, a researcher at Clearinghouse, a Canadian organisation dedicated
to investigating and implementing low-cost water purification technologies, believes
the Moringa oleifera tree could go a long way to providing a solution. "Moringa
oleifera is a vegetable tree which is grown in Africa, Central and South America,
the Indian subcontinent, and South East Asia . It could be considered to be one
of the world's most useful trees," said Lea. "Not only is it drought resistant,
it also yields cooking and lighting oil, soil fertilizer, as well as highly nutritious
food in the form of its pods, leaves, seeds and flowers. Perhaps most importantly,
its seeds can be used to purify drinking water at virtually no cost," he added.
Moringa tree seeds, when crushed into powder, can be used as a water-soluble extract
in suspension, resulting in an effective natural clarification agent for highly
turbid and untreated pathogenic surface water. As well as improving drinkability,
this technique reduces water turbidity (cloudiness) making the result aesthetically
as well as microbiologically more acceptable for human consumption. "This technique
does not represent a total solution to the threat of waterborne disease," said
Lea. "However, given that the cultivation and use of the Moringa tree can bring
benefits in the shape of nutrition and income as well as of far purer water, there
is the possibility that thousands of 21st century families could find themselves
liberated from what should now be universally seen as19th century causes of death
and disease," he said. "This is an amazing prospect, and one in which a huge amount
of human potential could be released. This is particularly mind-boggling when
you think it might all come down to one incredibly useful tree," he added. |
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