Gizmos & Gadgets: A Chlorine Maker for 1.8 Billion Who Have Unreliable Contaminated Drinking Water

November 1, 2016 – MSR Global Health is a division Mountain Safety Research, an outdoor equipment manufacturer. The company prides itself on creating solutions built on a sustainable model. On its website it states: “By using our technical ingenuity and our manufacturing expertise, we believe we can develop meaningful solutions that improve global health — and in doing so, create true and lasting change.”

In keeping with that mission spirit the company has created a product it describes as a community chlorine maker. Designated the MSR SE200(TM), the company has launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to raise $50,000 U.S. to put 2,500 units in the hands of low-resource communities around the world in 2017, giving them the power to produce their own bacteria-free freshwater.

Drinking water is a challenge for many in the world. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 4.2 billion today get freshwater through piped connections with 2.4 billion receiving water through public taps, protected wells and boreholes. That leaves 663 million relying on unimproved water sources including 159 million dependent on surface water. WHO estimates 1.8 billion get drinking water today from sources contaminated by human and animal waste.  Contaminated water transmits diseases  including cholera, dysentery, typhoid and polio. 842,000 people (361,000 of them children under the age of five) die from diarrhoea annually from unsafe drinking water. And although we have seen improvements in delivering uncontaminated freshwater the WHO estimates that by 2025 half of the world’s population will be residing in water-stressed areas which will make clean freshwater even more scarce.

Chlorine can stop waterborne infections but its availability in low and middle-income countries is limited by a lack of transportation infrastructure, poor storage facilities, and insufficient quantities for treating community drinking water.

The MSR SE200 is a potential drinking-water solution that is a simple, effective and an inexpensive way to create chlorine through a process of mixing salt and water and then having the battery-powered or pluggable device treat the brine through an electrolysis process to produce enough chlorine in five minutes to treat 200 liters of water. The average human needs to consume a liter of water a day, so that’s enough treated drinking water for 200.

World Vision, PATH, the Lemelson Foundation, Laird Norton Family Foundation, and Washington Global Health Alliance have partnered and funded MSR at various stages in developing the SE200. The company donated 100 kits to Haiti to decontaminate freshwater after the country was hit by Hurricane Matthew in October destroying many remote communities in the southwestern part of the country.

The Indiegogo campaign has a month to go and so far has raised more than $21,000 from 279 backers. If you want to participate a pledge of $160 will provide enough money to send one device to reach 200 people in need. The company will also give you a 30% discount coupon for purchases of any of its MSR gear. A minimum pledge of $10 will help provide treated water for 2 families, $30 for a classroom, $50 for over 60 people, $80 for over 100, and $320 a buy one and give one device offer.

For the more adventurous supporters a $16,000 campaign pledge will get you a trip to a World Vision community in Kenya. You can add on an optional safari while you are there. The pledge doesn’t include airfare, visas and vaccinations.

Corporate sponsors can pledge $40,000 to deliver 250 devices to 50,000 users to treat their own water. The sponsors company brand will be imprinted on each MSR SE200 shipped. The product is ready to ship now.