Year in Ideas

Water is very different than oil -- learning about it, that is. With oil -- much of it had to do with understanding the pervasiveness, the toxicity, the freedom.
I think that to learn about water is to begin to understand discrepancy.
I think that to learn about water is to begin to understand privilege and waste and luxury and comparison.
Sometimes when I am stressed out I take a long hot shower, even if I have taken one in the morning... I think my hot water tank holds 40 gallons of water...



8th Annual Year in Ideas
Mahlangu Hand-washer
By ALICE RAWSTHORN
NY Times
Published: December 12, 2008

Irene van Peer is a Dutch designer who, with a group of colleagues, has devised a clever method for turning empty plastic beverage bottles into hand-washing devices to help prevent the spread of disease in Africa. Van Peer realized the need for such a device while working on sanitation projects in South African townships; many of the township residents have difficulty washing their hands because they lack easy access to water. Van Peer and her colleagues began by having conversations about the idea with people, mostly women, in the townships. “For me it was important to listen to their problems and to come back with a solution they could make themselves,” she says.

Eventually, van Peer and her colleagues hit upon an ingenious design. It involves converting the cap of an empty bottle into a homemade tap. The cap is pierced and then a long, skinny cone made from a readily available material like cork is inserted. One end of a length of wire is pushed through the cone, and the other is wound around a weight, like a stone, to nestle in the palm of the hand. The bottle is held above the hand facing downward, and when the weight is pushed up, the water is released and trickles down the wire toward the weight. Used carefully, a one-liter bottle can perform up to 60 hand-washes.

After showing people in the townships how to use it, van Peer also left instructions to be passed on from person to person. She named it the Mahlangu after Johanna Mahlangu, a woman who told her she planned to make the hand-washers for her day care center for disabled children.