Source: http://ecolocalizer.com
Written by Shirley Siluk Gregory
Published on October 15th, 2008
Posted in Cincinnati, Ohio
Danny Steaven at Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license.)One billion people without access to clean water. Four thousand child deaths a day because of water-borne diseases. Most of us hear those statistics and shake our heads. Greg Allgood took action.
Allgood (a fitting name if ever there was one), a public-health specialist at Cincinnati-based Proctor & Gamble, led a team that developed what can only be described as a miracle powder: an inexpensive concoction that, with a little stirring and time, causes impurities in water to coagulate and settle to the bottom. Not just “regular” impurities like particles of dirt or even bacteria, but parasites like cryptosporidium and giardia, which can cause severe — sometimes fatal — intestinal illnesses.
This week, the PUR water purifier was named one of Popular Mechanics’ Top 10 World-Changing Innovations of the Year. It’s an honor that’s well deserved.
Allgood did more than help develop a miraculous life-saver, though: he convinced Proctor & Gamble not to stop making it after the powder didn’t prove profitable enough. Instead, Allgood persuaded the company to create a not-for-profit unit: the Children’s Safe Drinking Water program. The unit has since helped relief organizations around the globe provide people with more than one billion liters of clean, safe drinking water.
Allgood himself travels around the world to hand out packets of PUR and teach people how to use them to make sure their water is safe to drink. He’s been blogging about his experiences since 2005, and his posts make for fascinating reading.
Be sure to check out the PUR Packet link at the Children’s Safe Drinking Water Website to see this amazing powder in action — it’s awesome.
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