Please Note: On this, World Water Day, Heavenly Water pledges to do our best to provide safe drinking water to as many people as possible as soon as possible. This is our mission, our calling and our heart’s desire.
When you can’t drink water from the ground beneath you and you can’t drink the water from the river beside you, there is little alternative but to drink the water from the sky above you.
With over 80% of the population living rurally, and half of them being landless and living in extreme poverty, the vast majority don’t have the means to repay a microloan for a rainwater harvesting system. Our solution is to lease an acre of farmland, then install a catchment and collection system over the entire area. Bangladesh’s prodigious rainfalls will provide 388 families (1550 locals) with 5 liters of safe drinking every day. Placing collection sites in areas known to have high levels of arsenic will prevent millions of young people (50 million are under the age of 15) from knowingly drinking poison each day, since they have no alternative.
High tank walls will keep fresh water safe during floods. Each facility will employ slow sand filters to ensure that the water is safe to drink, thus the entire operation requires no electricity. Homeowners will also be trained to assemble and install low cost RWH kits on their homes to augment their water supplies and incomes as systems are installed on homes countrywide.
The system costs per installed acre are around US$ 17,000 with costs recoverable in just a few years. This translates into US$ 9.12 per person and just US$0.006 per liter. The daily drinking water cost per family will be US$ 0.15.
US$ .02 provides a day’s supply of safe, arsenic-free drinking water for an infant.
Her mom should have been so lucky.
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Reed; the ongoing dialog from postings to your entry have been most interesting and informative/educational.
The most recent have been relevant to an issue we've been concerned with for some years now, ever since working with/reviewing a wide variety of systems around the world; paricularly in SE/Mainland Asia as well as in Mexico.
Assuring that the raw waters being stored - whether via Rainwater Catchment systems, as you've developed, or the varied groundwater tapping - are truly "pure" (meaning that not only the more basic/common bacterial pathogens, but the encapsulated parasitic, cystic and fungal forms as well, are fully & properly "dispatched") is normally requiring a multi-agent treatment.
Storage Tanks & their fittings, as well as vessels into which such water is transferred. can also be/become tainted; with any number/type of pathogens in "downstream" & pre-drinking use exposure.
For these reasons, plus being able to provide such water with PROLONGED pathogen kill protection, we developed the treated clay bar option. A single bar, soakd in our "paint" form solution (which is 10X the strength of the liquid) , will totally kill - and keep killing - ALL manner of pathogens, whether already in or subsequently introduced to collected water.
A single bar - about the size of a small chocolate bar - will treat 5/Gallons of constantly replaced water for a year, or more. No interim maintenance, only a 1X/Annual change out.
This application could take ALL the doubts/??? out of your process. We'd like to work with you, to give it a try. Oxfam tested & loved it; as have many others. Local potters can be engaged to make & treat the bars, so it can stimulate local economies. (The same paint can be used to line earthenware transport/storage vessels, to prolong/maintain fullest integrity of the water). See www.whaintl.com for particulars.
Thanks for the comment. Your products sound interesting. No mention of costs. Are desperately poor people going to be able to afford a single bar – especially when other purification alternatives are free or almost so?
Our indoor service tanks will be 250 or 500 liters depending on family size. Does that mean the 250 liter tank will need 12 bars?
India has 300 million affluent people, meaning there is a large market for rainwater harvesting systems by families that can afford to purchase them outright. I would imagine your products would be the right fit for many families. Sales people could offer to provide your products as an enhancement or accessory to add some whiz bang to their rainwater harvesting system. Can you send me samples?
Regarding poor families, (I’m guessing here) but many families may only own one or two water jugs, so relegating one as “the drinking water jug” would greatly reduce their water collecting ability. By providing them with one of our 25 or 50 liter tanks, specifically designed to accommodate the clay bar, family members would know which tank to drink from, they would have a way of making river water safe to drink, and they’d have more water storage capacity. We could possibly test market a small tank kit that included a clay bar. What do you think?
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Seamus B.
Reed - Charles is out of the country for a bit longer, and as the posting will be closed in a couple days, he's asked me to provide answers to your very legit & cogent remarks:
1) We don't cite pricing of our various products, because they can vary in some degree (expecially "laid in" quotes) & people expect whatever pricing may have been mentioned, regardless of circumstances. We CAN say with certainty, however, that we can make our Vials available virtually anywhere (short, possibly, of countries that may insist on imposing high duties for such items) that can yield the under $.01/day for an individual or small family (i.e., 2/Liters/day) of fully pure/totally drinkable water.
2) Clay bars will mainly be made by local Potters (IF proper clay quality can be found anywhere in the region). Weight, fragility/breakage factors are thereby minimized/reflected in cost. Given (proven) formula provided - i.e., @purifying 5/Gal's., continuous flow Raw Water for (@Min.) 12/Months+* - one can quickly see that this mode yields even lower costs per/unit than the vials. [NB: *"Bars" have actually proven still fully effective for as long as 18/Mo's., but recommend changing out @12/Mos., to allow for "human nature"; i.e., procrastination, forgetfulness & urge to squeeze more out of whatever they must pay for!]
3) And YES, you would need 1/Bar per every 5/Gal's of tank capacity. But again, do the math: Think how much water can be fully, safely, permanently purified in such tanks (including keeping tank/fittings/hoses themselves also purified!), over the course of a year; with NO other maintenance needed during that period.
4) re; affordability: All of us in this business understand that people living on $1/Day & less MUST have such items provided on a subsidized basis. Ours is no exception; even at factory cost, they couldn't afford it!
5) Yes, we should arrange a test for your operation. I'll follow up in this with you; also, on lined vessels.
Safe drinking water and its costs are critical concerns for people living at the bottom of the pyramid. Our rainwater harvesting system addresses both issues in one neat package. An important aspect of our system is training mothers how to collect only the finest rain since it is free, delivered to the home free of charge, and perfectly safe to drink when collected properly.
We will also teach mothers how to handle water safely. We will also provide them with the tools and training so they can store, test and process water correctly. Our tanks are designed to keep dangerous contaminates out. The H2S test is ideal for determining if further processing is even needed. Water processing methods include using slow sand filtration at the community storage tank while at home mothers can use SODIS or a filtration unit to process water at low cost.
A viable alternative might be batch processing using your product. Families could gather water from a number of points including a borehole, well, public tap, river and rain, and then combine them in a single container then add the correct amount of your product to purify the water. This solution would require two 150 liter tanks – one for water being collected and one that contains purified water that is being consumed. We can provide tank kits of any size that families can assemble if they can adapt to the batch processing method. Do you think this approach has any merit?
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Dear Reed,
The bar was not designed to be used by the extreme poor at this time we are using our silverdyne product for that at this time, the bar was ment for the intercity infrastructure . We are continuously looking for a secondary, use of the bar that is more cost effective in the villages, depending on how they store their water.
Like any situation you must look at what they’re doing now for water delivery and find a more cost effective reliable plan.
As you know one product does not fit every situation.
Since we are a wholesale manufacture it wouldn’t be prudent, to give wholesale cost on some of our product, since there is a distributor mark-up cost involved.
I hope you received the test protocols on the clay bars I sent you.
I would be happy to go over them in-depth as soon as I get back in the US on the 27th march
Reed I hope this answered your immediate questions and hope to work further with you on this endeavor.
Hola Reed,
As a rainwater harvesting person let me congratulate you on your optimism and positive approach to try and solve the drinking water problem of India especially that of the poor.
While I agree that rooftop rainwater can be absolutely fit for drinking it has been my experience that it takes a lot of working with the community especially women to keep the rooftop catchments clean, to design good filter and to eliminate the need to remove the first 15 minutes of rain.
The reason I mention this is
- it mostly rains in the late evenings and night and in all likelihood nobody is around to open and close caps to let the rain out
- rainfall itself is limited to 15 minutes specially the more precious summer showers and there is no sense in wasting even a drop. A clean catchment and a good filter of that.
However people still will not drink rainwater because there is a widespread perception that it causes a cold.
Now that takes some convincing and includes proving that alternate sources of water is contaminated using a simple H2S strip test. See for example
Your project could also be very relevant in fluoride and arsenic affected areas where people are more willing to drink rainwater and maintain the systems See for example
If you search for zenrainman on youtube I have tried to upload some films of rooftop rainwater harvesting systems which may be of assistance to you. Say for example
Good luck on your endeavour and expect some positive competition from yours truly :):)
regards
zenrainman
Dear Reed,
Your work on a off-the shelf product for rainwater harvesting is indeed commendable. Just a couple of questions:
a) In your assessment, how do you think the pricing policies of water in India, and the pricing of water by "unscrupulous" vendors are going to matter for the success of your tanks ?
b) Do you first see this achieving market penetration with home owners (urban middle and upper classes in the indian context) and then moving to the rural/peri-urban and urban poor as markets ?
c) What are the challenges you foresee in striking partnerships with MFIs and NGOs to take this to the poor?
I am a colleague of Zen who has commented before on your kit - Please do read and comment on our entry "Water Wise: service provision to drive ecological water practices". We would like to keep in touch with you and talk of potential partnerships.
Looking forward to your reply, and good luck in your endeavors,
Regards
Avinash for Rainwater Club
It’s not fair that the well-to-do get clean water piped into their homes at low cost while the poor pay a “premium” for unsafe water. Regardless of pricing policies, for India’s poor, the abundant clean water that falls overhead comes at a price they can afford – it’s free.
I hope that once this system is available, the market for tanker water dries up. This bottom-up initiative works at the individual, family and community levels. We provide the tools, they provide their own solutions. That said, I suspect one or two people within a community of urban families will become the "rainman." They will collect, transport and recharge family water tanks. By offering a superior product and loving service at a lower price, unscrupulous vendors will be looking for work elsewhere.
It is my understanding that the well-to-do can afford safe drinking water, but, with the means to buy a system, they will be a key source of income for some franchises.
Franchises will be tasked with fulfilling demand within their assigned territory. New affiliate franchises will fan outward as potential clients conclude that the tank and rain water can solve their problems too.
Our tank enables rainwater to be collected, transported and stored just like rice or wheat. That turns rain into a commodity and each harvester into an income earner. The simple act of attaching a tank to a roof to collect rainfall is a windfall due to the potential for high yields. (Simplistically: In Bangalore a 50M roof X 800mm rain = 40,000 L. A family of 5 consuming 10 L/day needs 18000 L so they can sell 22000 L @ $.01 = $220/yr.) This makes home owners prime candidates for subsequent microloans since repayment is as predictable as the monsoon rains.
I need to study your entry before posting a comment.
I would be very interested in pursuing a partnership in the near future.
Thanks for the post. Sorry for the delayed reply but I’ve been sick.
I agree. Once you have an affordable tank, it’s easy to collect high quality water. But is it really fit for consumption? The H2S test is ideal for testing a big batch of water to see if further processing is required.
But as your video points out, there are easy ways to ensure the water is safe to drink. For many rural families, running the rainwater through a fine paper filter then using SODIS will result in heavenly water with virtually no effort or expense. Others may prefer to create a slow sand filter since the availability of a low cost tank with free local materials makes this both practical and inexpensive and offers higher production rates than SODIS. Still others will prefer to use a ceramic filter or a PuR sachet.
When water is being transported to a community tank for storage, the storage facility will pass all outgoing water through a slow sand filter. This adds value, it removes a mother’s worries while reducing her chores and it increases yields since foul-flushing isn’t required.
When a community has enough systems installed, businesses offering services will appear. Crews will gladly climb up and clean a roof, clean, repair or move a tank or sheath the tank with wattle and daub - all for a small fee.
It’s true! Rainwater causes colds. But when a mother’s babies stop crying from bellyaches, her husband is working more because he’s healthier, and she feels so much better and she has some extra jingle in her purse, she’ll take that myth out with the trash and rave to the girls how one device improved so many aspects of her life. She’ll realize how fundamental safe drinking water is to a good family life and that it’s a precursor to beginning the trek out of poverty.
To paraphrase Paul Polak, “the ruthless pursuit of affordability is the keystone of effective design for poor customers.” For Heavenly Water, this pursuit is also a core part of our foundation.
Our tanks come as kits to reduce costs. In a model for farms, the framework is produced from scratch with simple tools by farmers who have lots of time and little money. Our home system tanks contain only the essential components. The owner must complete the tank using local materials and their time. Wattle and daub and thatch will provide UV protection. A dirt berm or bamboo shell toughens the exterior. Resourceful owners will make discoveries and share their tips with others.
Our systems are ruthless too! The downspout funnel is a recycled soft drink bottle. The downspout on one system is actually a garden hose that also serves as a hose and siphon. The rough filter is made from material found in any home. A slow sand filter kit comes with instructions so the owner can gather material at the local river and build the filter system almost for free. A tank shell under design comes as a kit that can also serve as a new home roof. As the cost of oil rises, we are working on designs that use 50% less plastic and others that use no plastic.
Higher income also makes things more affordable so even the uneducated can assemble tanks to sell to earn money. Water can be collected then transported and sold to earn money. Learning to assemble tanks and install systems can provide years of income and good health.
Someday soon, shiny new ad or logo adorned tanks will roll out of the factory that are “ready for rain.” Some larger sponsored tanks will produce revenue; others will be subsidized while smaller tanks will be completely free to those in need. And free is a price even the poorest customer can afford.
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Thanks for the good work you're doing. Can you please let us know about the best types of plastic to use, and those not to use? Eg. Some plastics leach materials into the water, and some do not. I've always been a little uncertain about this, and would appreciate your thoughts.
Reid Harvey
SilverCeramicSystems.com
Alfred, NY USA
+508 246-1185
I'm the founder & director of a tree faming social enterprise in Kilifi, Kenya (called KOMAZA). We provide poor farm families with eucalyptus farm inputs on credit, education for successful planting and maintenance, and complete value-capture services (harvesting, transporting, processing, and marketing trees as high-margin wood products).
Great thread--you're developing a really promising and much-needed technology. I'd like to suggest another opportunity, aside from providing water for domestic consumption, in which your tank could have incredible utility--collecting/storing water for crop irrigation. 80% of Africa's poor are farmers. The hardest to serve of these communities live in semi-arid lands where rainfall is too low and unpredictable for the traditional food crops families struggle to grow. The greatest determinant of hunger and chronic poverty in these communities is quite clearly the lack of water for farming. With more water, families could dramatically increase their yields and start farming higher-value (thirstier) crops.
A great example of how providing water dramatically increases crop yields is demonstrated by KickStart's Super Money-Maker pump--by watering their crops, existing yields are increased many fold and families can plant/sell higher-value, more nutritious crops. However, many communities in semi-arid lands without nearby streams or rivers do not have the basic requirement for using this pump--a supply of water. Your low-cost rainwater harvesting tanks may be just the solution required to store water needed for irrigating crops in semi-arid farms. The key would be building a large enough tank--10,000-50,000+ liters.
So in addition to having great utility for providing water for domestic consumption, I feel there is great opportunity for your tanks in collecting rainwater for irrigating crops. This might also provide another financing mechanism for you--by increasing crop yields and enabling higher-value crops, your families would earn much more income--this increase in income would likely justify the initial front-end investment for buying your tank. This would make selling the tank on loan with long-term repayment very attractive.
I wish you great luck and look forward to observing your progress.
- Tevis Howard
I agree that there is tremendous potential for rainwater harvesting to increase crop yields using drip irrigation.
The specification I wrote early in this project was based primarily on the needs of farm families since they are the largest group in dire need of safe drinking water. Secondarily, because being able to store enough water to grow a second crop each year would double their income.
I developed two hand tools that enable farmers to manufacture the tank framework in their spare time. The first tank kit they purchase would include the tools and material and cost about $20. Subsequent kits would cost just $10 and contain just the material. This allows them to add storage capacity over time as money permits.
It would also provide them with a job since they would have the tools, training and experience needed to create a product of value. When you mix good health with time, tools and ability, you have the makings of those wonderful things called hope, incentive and opportunity.
The framework of the large green tank (called the M3 because it holds 1000 liters which equals a year’s supply of drinking water for one adult) was manufactured using the hand tools.
I have a 30 minute movie in which I demonstrate every major task as I turn raw material into a working tank that starts by making the framework using the simple tools. Email your mailing address to reed@heavenlywater.org and I’ll send you a CD that contains “Let’s Build A Tank” and other movies including “Proof of Concept,” and “The Funnel Siphon.”
Farmers are natural weathermen and experts at water handling. An acre of land can collect over 2,000,000 liters of rain a year. In other words, the solution to some of their biggest problems is right overhead. They just need a good container.
All the best,
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
A young mother enters a clinic holding her belly and complains to the nurse, “The river made me sick again.”
The nurse nods and reaches for some medicine. “Drink rain to have no pain,” she says pointing to words on a flyer on the wall. “They give free lessons on market day. You get to make a rain tank and take it home. It’s free thanks to a NGO,” she says drawing water from a tank so the girl can take a pill. “I built this tank,” the nurse says victoriously, “and so can you.”
“Me!” she says scrutinizing the tank.
“Don’t fear, it’s easy,” the nurse assures. The girl takes her pill and glances at the tank saying, “I hate bellyaches.”
Franchises will host workshops that teach locals how to build small tanks, collect rain, manage the water, and practice good hygiene. Women get 200 L tanks for free while men can purchase kits at a discount to assemble and sell from home.
Hosting classes will increase the franchise’s revenues due to kit sales. It will also train future crew workers, remove people’s fears and empower women. It will also lead to sales of systems, storage tanks, accessories and services for the franchise in the future.
Rural India will benefit the most from this program. When farmers take kits home to assemble and sell, they become the distribution network. They also become skilled in rain collection and storage. At some point they will be ready for larger tanks and systems. This in turn will lead to a need for a community storage tank. And that leads to bigger vegetable gardens, more livestock to sell, a second crop, a life rich in water and/or sales of water to nearby towns. And no more stomach aches.
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
I didn't see any mention, perhaps I missed it, but I wonder if there would be an issue with bacteria or other types of growths on the surface either as the water was drawn down or even if the water remained at a high level?
Ever catch raindrops in your mouth as a child? It was fun and rain is safe to drink. It is nature’s elixir and practically a fountain of youth compared to other unprotected natural sources like lakes, rivers and open wells.
It’s the drop’s landing that it causes problems. Rainwater is so pristine, it aggressively absorbs minerals and chemicals it touches. This makes that pure drop an ideal environment for bacteria too. For rainwater harvesting, it is important to divert the first 15 minutes of rain hitting a roof away from the tank. This cleans the roof of most bacteria laden contaminates like bird droppings, dead bugs and debris. Rain can then pass through a rough filter on its way into the tank and the water is safe to drink, according to WHO. Some (mostly harmless) bacteria will still reach the tank so we would like to partner with a group to provide a filtration device option for families with newborns and infants.
Also, water, like wine, gets better with age. Bacteria need to eat, but once all the food is gone they die, which improves the water.
Our tanks have a tight cover that prevents bacteria, contaminates, sunlight, critters and kids from entering the tank and this keeps the water fresh throughout the dry season.
Thanks again,
Reed
P.S. The name Heavenly Water was my mom's idea. I'll tell her you like it. Thankx
The number of people needing safe drinking water is staggering. More than twice the population of the US needs safe water in India alone. Ten factories could not fulfill the dire need for rainwater harvesting systems. Far better is a value network that distributes material and support to local franchises that can deliver products that generate a profit for them and safe drinking water, a higher income and better health for families.
One franchise per 1,000 homes translates into 72,000 franchises installing 1 system a day and 1 storage tank a week. Each franchise will employ 10-20 people in good jobs with good pay that requires little training and no education. Nice!
This approach has many other advantages:
- It provides “genuine” tanks that meet safety standards to counter the substandard black-market tanks that will appear
- Material is market driven making supplies more reliable
- It promotes custom solutions like catchment systems and specialized tanks
- It will increase local capacity in trades like cement workers, roofers and plumbers
Franchises present sales opportunities beyond the microfinance solution:
- Direct sales to the community
- Leasable storage tanks for construction sites
- Rentable transport tanks for seasonal hauling
NGOs can do good from afar
- A NGO in NYC can email a loan agreement to a microfinance firm in India that then provides the cash to the local franchise to install a rainwater harvesting system on a new clinic
The franchise can fill local demand for tanks and projects calling for their expertise
- Water & waste treatment facilities
- Water & sewage infrastructure projects
- Industrial tanks and systems
- Indoor & roof tanks and systems for business
- Silo, coop and fencing sales and service
Community tank assembly, system installation and healthcare training
- Reduces system costs for families
- Empowerment/job training
- Home water management, safe handling and hygiene training
- Disaster mitigation through material stockpiling and a skilled workforce
Turning safe drinking water into a commodity is very doable. With the recent development of a low cost water tank kit, most homeowners can now easily collect high quality water to consume and/or sell. Being able to sell something harvested from your roof is like money from heaven.
To turn this harvest into a cash crop, the product has to reach the market, and in India, people are the pipeline through which goods flow. An enterprise becomes more vital and sustainable when more groups in the community have a stake in its success.
Rickshaw drivers are the pipeline by which water flows from home to storage tank during the rainy season. They are also the pipeline through which water flows from storage tank to homes during the dry season.
Work crews are the pipeline through which kits go from factory to shop to home. During the process, they do the assembly, installation and maintenance for which they earn a nice living. They also provide these services to businesses, schools, clinics, churches and so on.
Charity after charity has concluded that giving a handpump to the needy does not work. They have no ownership, no capacity building, and often little ongoing support. However, if you could turn that pump into a moneymaker, it would almost never be broken for long. Our rainwater harvesting system uses gravity, the weather, and it has no moving parts. It is just a moneymaker and a health provider.
Mothers are already expert water managers, so they already know how to squeeze every drop of water from the tank if it means better health, less work and more money for the family. Study after study has shown that people will pay for water. So the question is will they pay a premium for high quality water from a fastidious mother with healthy children? What’d ya say we build the system and find out.
It’s just amazing. A billion people are crying and dying due to a lack of safe drinking water. Remarkably, the solution is right overhead. Rain is heavenly water. It is an elixir and a curative and possibly nature’s finest renewable resource. But without a way to collect it while it’s safe to drink, the world’s poor can only watch it collect in the river where it becomes very dangerous. Since everyone must drink water, they drink it. And then they get sick. And many even die.
Our water tank solves this horrible problem. It enables families to collect the water that lands on their roof and store it for consumption throughout the dry season. When it rains, it pours, so our system enables them to turn this liquid asset into a savings account. Selling this surplus provides desperately needed income for the family and the means to repay the microloan for the system that brought them good health and good fortune.
Here’s how - A group of neighborhood families get microloans for systems while another neighbor gets a microloan to start a water storage business. Rainwater collected by the families during the monsoon season goes into the storage tank. During the dry season, families withdraw drinking water from the tank to stay water healthy year-round. They sell the surplus water to families that recently received a microloan for a system. When their system is installed, it includes enough purchased drinking water to last until the rains start. They sell water to the group the next year and the cycle is repeated until everyone owns a system.
This “pay it forward” system ensures quality water, loan repayment, good health, higher income and many other benefits for individuals and families. Solving the problem one family at a time means this bottom up solution works for those living at the bottom of the pyramid. But it also means the problem has to be solved millions of times …
Hi Reed, Great discussion around your work! Could you give a more in depth description of your step by step go to market plan? How will you market, sell and distribute your product? Thank you.
Dana Frasz
Changemakers
Currently, the home plumbing system consists of a mother or daughter, jug in hand, bound for the river, tap or well on yet another water fetching trip.
When our woven wire tank enters the picture, rickshaw mounted tanks will fetch 30 jugs of water in a single trip, freeing some daughters to attend school.
When our rainwater harvesting kit is assembled and installed, safe drinking water will be delivered to the home free of charge by mother nature.
When the community storage tank enters the picture, water transport will initially be done by rickshaw. But over time, and with income from water sales, neighborhoods will install plumbing lines running from each home to a staging tank sitting beside the community tank.
When the operator opens a value, gravity sends water flowing through pipes that fill tanks located in each home on the neighborhood grid. The operator then closes the value and begins preparing for tomorrow’s delivery by refilling the staging tank with water coming from a slow sand filter tank that is filled from the community tank.
During the monsoon season, the flow direction will be revered. Families will pipe collected rainwater into their indoor tank which will flow to the staging tank where it will be pumped into the storage tank.
Leaks, illegal taps, and poor water quality will be a thing of the past due to vigilant neighbors. And once the community can manage a fresh water system, they may want to install a sewage system so they can enjoy all the benefits of indoor plumbing.
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
While I applaud your ingenuity and your desire to incentivize the collection of rainwater, I am very concerned about the numbers you are using and their impact on the financial sustainability of your project in India.
If I understand you correctly, you are proposing that a rickshaw driver can collect and then sell water in an urban area for something between one half and two cents per liter. I just don't think that is feasible in most circumstances. The Delhi Jal Board (Water Board), for example, currently pipes water directly to households and charges only about 2 Rs/kiloliter (5 cents per thousand liters) while your cost (even at the half cent per liter still works out to about five dollars per thousand liters. Yes, I recognize that Delhi provides very high subsidies (which usually go to the rich instead of the poor) but even if we were to increase the Delhi Jal Board's cost by ten fold, we are still talking 5 dollars per kiloliter for your water vs. 50 cents for Municipal water. This just does not look like a sustainable proposition. I also recognize that prices vary from city to city but nowhere have I seen bulk sales as high as the prices you are quoting. Please let me know If you think I have misunderstood your proposal but I think we have a serious problem here.
Thanks for the great comment. It is my understanding that city water isn’t piped into the homes of slum dwellers and that it isn’t fit for human consumption anyway, so we are really talking apples and oranges here, it’s just that my apples look a lot like oranges.
The question is, given a new technology, how will urban slum dwellers utilize it? The Indian people are very enterprising and resourceful, so it is likely that mobile catchment, water vending by rickshaw and retail water stores will appear in short order once the tank is available.
While the water may appear to be expensive, that is compared to what? Currently the primary sources of safe drinking water for slum dwellers are soft drinks, chai and bottled water and bottled water isn’t listed as an improved source because the poor can’t afford it. So what are they willing to pay for safe drinking water? Is four cents a day to keep an infant free of water related illness too much? Ask the infant’s mother. She may well call it a bargain. And since this water will be free market priced, competition will keep the price as low as possible.
When large volumes of rainwater can be collected and stored, they can be monitored and processed to ensure purity. When city services can only provide unfit running water a few hours a day, isn’t a new and improved source of city water desperately needed? Especially when it operates independent of the municipal infrastructure.
If my numbers are correct, it would take just 2% of Mumbai’s population 100 hours to collect a year’s supply of safe drinking water for the populace if storage capacity were available. Thus, Mumbai doesn’t have a supply problem or even a delivery problem, it has a storage problem.
Rainwater harvesting can’t solve India’s water problems, but it can, by and large, solve its safe drinking water problem.
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Rainwater harvesting is cyclical. When the rains begin, tanks fill, which makes it the ideal time to distribute new systems. After all, who’d want a water tank that would be bone dry for months. Yet except for donated or purchased systems, large scale distribution during the rainy season isn’t practical, sustainability or scalable because farmers are planting, people need steady work, and the sudden demand would be unmanageable.
So year-round distribution is the ticket and here’s how . . . A microfinance institution qualifies a small group of neighbors for systems based on factors like roof type, household size, special needs and so on. The MFI also provides a microloan to start a 250,000 L community water storage business near these neighbors.
A home with a 75 sq M roof that gets 750 cm of rainfall can collect 45,000 L of water a year that gets stored in the community tank. At 10 L per person per day, a typical family will need 20,075 liters that first year. This provides a surplus of 25,000 L which has a value of $125 (@ $.005/L.) that is used to pay off the microloan.
This surplus water will provide 3 L per person per day of safe drinking water for 6 homes and keep each family water-healthy till the rains start, when their daily use goes up to 10 L per person per day. The water’s cost of $40 is included in the microloan for their new system. A markup of $.005 per L on the water provided enables the water storage business to pay off its microloan.
Thus, over five years, a region might experience system adoption like this: 1,000, 6,000, 36,000, 216,000, 1,296,000. Replicated in enough regions and the effect is pronounced, especially given that each system represents about 5 family members who are enjoying better health, safe drinking water, higher income and ownership of a rainwater harvesting system.
George Washington University
Faculty
Very interesting point. Linking it with microfinance may be the key. You may have heard of "micro-franchizing" that has this concept. May want to look it up.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention Dr. Sud!
Rainwater harvesting and micro-franchising fit nicely together because safe drinking water, when harvested from the sky, can produce income for a family living in a house with a good roof.
This livelihoods approach to health, wealth and well-being will be a windfall for families. Mothers are already skilled water managers, so leveraging these skills to maximize income is fairly simple. For example she could test a fresh batch of rainwater using the simple H2S test and find that, because she keeps a clean roof, the water is safe to drink without further processing. This increases income when selling the water since it doesn’t need further refinement to be safe to drink. Or say the family gets a slow sand filter and processes water at home to sell. Isn’t this water worth more since it comes from a trusted neighbor who has a reputation for collecting and processing her water to the highest standards? After all, you can see her kids are healthy and therefore feel good buying her water.
This livelihoods approach to income creation will be a windfall for communities as well. Just as silos store harvested grain in Kansas, tanks can store harvested water in India. And building a local infrastructure will result in new local enterprises like brick making or a public laundry or bath house or low cost water for vegetable gardens, or to reduce the impact of a drought. Building local infrastructure using local hands can provide the impetus for workers to learn more advanced skills like roofing or tank building, so they can do off-season construction work in the city. Local infrastructure opens the door to more regional commerce and communication and work-free days for children so they can get an education.
So micro-franchising may be a ticket to relative health, wealth and well-being for families initially, and for their communities thereafter, and that’s a win-win for everyone.
George Washington University
Faculty
I am delighted that you have chosen to focus on this important subject. It remains an under-exploited subject and its potential is far from being exploited. However, you focus entirely on technology (i.e. an affordable tank) as the critical factor that can spur adoption of rainwater harvesting. I think you may want also to look at social, environmental and cultural factors. In the poor urban communities, there is often a lack of space for the tanks. The roof structures also do not lend themselves to collection of rainwater. One may need to organize communities to use common facilities such as a school or a temple to collect water fro the community. They will need to organize themselves in some form as "water users" to be able to collect charges for maintenance and for appropriate sharing. Some specific examples of how this can be done, what the charges should be, etc. would be good.
The middle and upper income families can do much more in rainwater harvesting but thyey don't. In part, this is because of the fact that the municipal water is very inexpensive. There are also superstitions about "stale" water. Contamination by animal and bird feces is also a concern. So examining barriers to adoption by such groups would be useful. You may know that building codes in many Indian cities require installation of rainwater harvesting. But these regulations are largely ignored. How do you overcome these problems.
In summary, I very much like your idea. But I think you should think about overcoming barriers to adoption beyond just technology.
Thank you for your kind words. I agree with all you say. This vast and complex subject needs more space that an application can provide.
With over 300 million Indians living in city slums, this is a critical issue. Please refer to my comment titled Rainwater Collection in an Urban Setting which addresses this very issue. Mumbai doesn’t have a water problem as the district of Colaba got over 2 meters of rain during the 07 monsoon season. What it has is a water storage problem that this innovation can in part solve. It is almost a tragedy that more hasn’t been done in this regard. It is possible that the primary reason is simple economics? Tanks are very expensive to build – until now.
If a small shop were to open that bought rainwater, hordes of people would become experts in rainwater collection, storage, transport, and management when it starts raining money. So maybe the simplest way of making it culturally acceptable is to make it a cultural no-brainer by making it money-maker open to every slum dweller, child, and illiterate person as rainwater harvesting does once an affordable tank is available.
I agree that social, cultural and adoption issues are important but ask someone living in abject poverty what’s most important and the answer usually is money, water, food, shelter or safety rather than cultural integrity. Ask a mother with a sick baby what’s most important and it’s medicine over food or gifts for a festival almost every time.
I can’t help but feel that the simplest solution to India’s safe drinking water crisis and the cultural, economic and social issues, is for the government to set a minimum value for a liter of rainwater, but this is an exercise in futility until an affordable storage system is available.
I've spoken about your project to a couple of friends and we were all very curious curious as to how potable rain water was in India, I presume it would vary across the developing world. Does rain water translate into drinking water without a filtration system? If I understand it correctly, there isn't a filtration system in your tanks. Also, since 2006, how many units have you sold? I would love to get a feel for the impact of your project.
Thank you for your response and keep up the good work!
Tyler
Thanks for your interest in our system. According to WHO in Guidelines for drinking-water quality V 3 on pg. 99 “Rainwater collected from clean house roofs can be of better microbiological quality than water collected from untreated household wells.”
Yes, keeping roofs and rainwater clean in a jungle environment is harder than say a savanna or desert. Less surface water means less bugs, bird dropping and debris. Training homeowners in proper roof, tank and water management techniques is an important aspect of this system.
The WHO guidelines also recommends “not collecting the first 5 - 10 minutes of rainfall to clean the roof and using filtering devices and a good tank to keep the water clean.” Our system has a foul flush and filtering device on the downspout. A ceramic or colloidal filter can be attached to the tank to further process and purify the water. An alternative is to add a small tank to the system to serve as a slow sand filter. When collected rainwater goes straight in a community tank, it can be unfiltered water, as long as the community tank uses a slow sand filter.
Also, like wine, rainwater improves with age. Matter settles and once the microbes consume all the food, they die. Unlike ground or surface water, rainwater has virtually no pollutants such as industrial chemicals like nitrate or natural chemicals like arsenic. That said, once you can store water, you can process and purify it, and this includes surface, ground or tap water.
After years of R & D & T, phase 1 is now complete, and we are looking for seed funding to do a pilot project and field trials.
Thanks again,
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Thank you so much for clarifying, I love that this can also be such an enlightening and educational forum! I believe you will find in due time that many water filtration entries will come in. Partnership opportunities will abound among the myriad of entrants. Best of luck to you and I hope for lots of seed funding for your field trials!
The development of a low cost water tank makes multi-tank systems viable and storing water by grade has many advantages. Homes can keep drinking water in one tank, cooking water in another, cleaning water in another, and gray water in another.
This equates to storing water by source such as drinking water from rain, cleaning water from the river, and cooking water comes from a public tap. When water sources become more numerous and diverse, the more a family can count on having a steady supply.
Efficient usage through reuse means few trips to the river and lower costs. In a town this also reduces demand on overtaxed public utilities. Examples of reuse include dish, bath and cleaning water, water to wash and soak lentils, water to clean just picked vegetables headed to market and tainted roof run off for irrigation.
Good water management by recycling also reduces trips to the river and water costs. Examples of recycling include the irrigation water tank that gets filled from other sources and the fertilizer tank that, like wine, improves with time.
While the rainwater tanks must be large to provide the family with enough drinking water to last the dry season, tanks for other purposes can be much smaller. A 100 liter reserve of river water means water fetching trips can occur when circumstances permit, rather than when the container is dry. Having a small transport tank to place on a wagon bound for the river can save from 3 to 30 water fetching trips. Having a stockpile of water will ensue that rainwater remains for drinking and doesn’t get used for cleaning. When the tank’s cost is less than the value of its contents, you can justify building a backup tank in case one springs a leak.
But the most quenching reason to own a multi-tank system is for “water security,” which feels a lot like “peace of mind.”
Hauling goods by rickshaw in the rain is not good business. Cardboard boxes become soggy and goods get wet.
Using a rickshaw to collect rainwater is good business. Our 500 liter tank weighs just 20 lbs, making it ideal for transporting water via rickshaw. The driver loads an empty tank, a catchment tarp, 4 bamboo poles and stakes onto his rickshaw. He then pedals to an open location like a park, an open field, an empty lot and erects the tarp using the poles that are held fast with guy lines staked to the ground. A hole in the tarp’s center sits over the tank and has tie downs to hold it in place. The rain falls onto this 7 meter square catchment, through the hole and into the tank.
During the monsoon season in Mumbai, the daily deluge often totals 10 centimeters, meaning the tank will fill with pure water within hours. The full tank weights 1100 lbs which is the maximum weight a rickshaw can carry.
He then disassembles and stows his gear and peddles to a storage facility to sell the water. If it sells for just one half cent US per liter, his take is $2.50 for three hours work while the daily wage of a rickshaw driver is about $2.00 Collecting drinking water doubles that day's income by making a downtime fruitful.
An urban water storage facility consists of a 500,000 tank and an operator. If the retail operation sells 1800 liters a day during the dry season at $.02 per liter, the net income is $22.00 a day after water costs and micro loan repayment. Selling water door-to-door from a rickshaw is also viable and it has many advantages.
An urban mother benefits because a day’s supply of safe drinking water for her infant costs just $.04 (2L) and $.06 (3L) for herself.
Please Note: On this, World Water Day, Heavenly Water pledges to do our best to provide safe drinking water to as many people as possible as soon as possible. This is our mission, our calling and our heart’s desire.
When you can’t drink water from the ground beneath you and you can’t drink the water from the river beside you, there is little alternative but to drink the water from the sky above you.
With over 80% of the population living rurally, and half of them being landless and living in extreme poverty, the vast majority don’t have the means to repay a microloan for a rainwater harvesting system. Our solution is to lease an acre of farmland, then install a catchment and collection system over the entire area. Bangladesh’s prodigious rainfalls will provide 388 families (1550 locals) with 5 liters of safe drinking every day. Placing collection sites in areas known to have high levels of arsenic will prevent millions of young people (50 million are under the age of 15) from knowingly drinking poison each day, since they have no alternative.
High tank walls will keep fresh water safe during floods. Each facility will employ slow sand filters to ensure that the water is safe to drink, thus the entire operation requires no electricity. Homeowners will also be trained to assemble and install low cost RWH kits on their homes to augment their water supplies and incomes as systems are installed on homes countrywide.
The system costs per installed acre are around US$ 17,000 with costs recoverable in just a few years. This translates into US$ 9.12 per person and just US$0.006 per liter. The daily drinking water cost per family will be US$ 0.15.
US$ .02 provides a day’s supply of safe, arsenic-free drinking water for an infant.
Her mom should have been so lucky.
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Reed; the ongoing dialog from postings to your entry have been most interesting and informative/educational.
The most recent have been relevant to an issue we've been concerned with for some years now, ever since working with/reviewing a wide variety of systems around the world; paricularly in SE/Mainland Asia as well as in Mexico.
Assuring that the raw waters being stored - whether via Rainwater Catchment systems, as you've developed, or the varied groundwater tapping - are truly "pure" (meaning that not only the more basic/common bacterial pathogens, but the encapsulated parasitic, cystic and fungal forms as well, are fully & properly "dispatched") is normally requiring a multi-agent treatment.
Storage Tanks & their fittings, as well as vessels into which such water is transferred. can also be/become tainted; with any number/type of pathogens in "downstream" & pre-drinking use exposure.
For these reasons, plus being able to provide such water with PROLONGED pathogen kill protection, we developed the treated clay bar option. A single bar, soakd in our "paint" form solution (which is 10X the strength of the liquid) , will totally kill - and keep killing - ALL manner of pathogens, whether already in or subsequently introduced to collected water.
A single bar - about the size of a small chocolate bar - will treat 5/Gallons of constantly replaced water for a year, or more. No interim maintenance, only a 1X/Annual change out.
This application could take ALL the doubts/??? out of your process. We'd like to work with you, to give it a try. Oxfam tested & loved it; as have many others. Local potters can be engaged to make & treat the bars, so it can stimulate local economies. (The same paint can be used to line earthenware transport/storage vessels, to prolong/maintain fullest integrity of the water). See www.whaintl.com for particulars.
Hey Charles,
Thanks for the comment. Your products sound interesting. No mention of costs. Are desperately poor people going to be able to afford a single bar – especially when other purification alternatives are free or almost so?
Our indoor service tanks will be 250 or 500 liters depending on family size. Does that mean the 250 liter tank will need 12 bars?
India has 300 million affluent people, meaning there is a large market for rainwater harvesting systems by families that can afford to purchase them outright. I would imagine your products would be the right fit for many families. Sales people could offer to provide your products as an enhancement or accessory to add some whiz bang to their rainwater harvesting system. Can you send me samples?
Regarding poor families, (I’m guessing here) but many families may only own one or two water jugs, so relegating one as “the drinking water jug” would greatly reduce their water collecting ability. By providing them with one of our 25 or 50 liter tanks, specifically designed to accommodate the clay bar, family members would know which tank to drink from, they would have a way of making river water safe to drink, and they’d have more water storage capacity. We could possibly test market a small tank kit that included a clay bar. What do you think?
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Seamus B.
Reed - Charles is out of the country for a bit longer, and as the posting will be closed in a couple days, he's asked me to provide answers to your very legit & cogent remarks:
1) We don't cite pricing of our various products, because they can vary in some degree (expecially "laid in" quotes) & people expect whatever pricing may have been mentioned, regardless of circumstances. We CAN say with certainty, however, that we can make our Vials available virtually anywhere (short, possibly, of countries that may insist on imposing high duties for such items) that can yield the under $.01/day for an individual or small family (i.e., 2/Liters/day) of fully pure/totally drinkable water.
2) Clay bars will mainly be made by local Potters (IF proper clay quality can be found anywhere in the region). Weight, fragility/breakage factors are thereby minimized/reflected in cost. Given (proven) formula provided - i.e., @purifying 5/Gal's., continuous flow Raw Water for (@Min.) 12/Months+* - one can quickly see that this mode yields even lower costs per/unit than the vials. [NB: *"Bars" have actually proven still fully effective for as long as 18/Mo's., but recommend changing out @12/Mos., to allow for "human nature"; i.e., procrastination, forgetfulness & urge to squeeze more out of whatever they must pay for!]
3) And YES, you would need 1/Bar per every 5/Gal's of tank capacity. But again, do the math: Think how much water can be fully, safely, permanently purified in such tanks (including keeping tank/fittings/hoses themselves also purified!), over the course of a year; with NO other maintenance needed during that period.
4) re; affordability: All of us in this business understand that people living on $1/Day & less MUST have such items provided on a subsidized basis. Ours is no exception; even at factory cost, they couldn't afford it!
5) Yes, we should arrange a test for your operation. I'll follow up in this with you; also, on lined vessels.
Hello and thanks for the comment.
Safe drinking water and its costs are critical concerns for people living at the bottom of the pyramid. Our rainwater harvesting system addresses both issues in one neat package. An important aspect of our system is training mothers how to collect only the finest rain since it is free, delivered to the home free of charge, and perfectly safe to drink when collected properly.
We will also teach mothers how to handle water safely. We will also provide them with the tools and training so they can store, test and process water correctly. Our tanks are designed to keep dangerous contaminates out. The H2S test is ideal for determining if further processing is even needed. Water processing methods include using slow sand filtration at the community storage tank while at home mothers can use SODIS or a filtration unit to process water at low cost.
A viable alternative might be batch processing using your product. Families could gather water from a number of points including a borehole, well, public tap, river and rain, and then combine them in a single container then add the correct amount of your product to purify the water. This solution would require two 150 liter tanks – one for water being collected and one that contains purified water that is being consumed. We can provide tank kits of any size that families can assemble if they can adapt to the batch processing method. Do you think this approach has any merit?
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Dear Reed,
The bar was not designed to be used by the extreme poor at this time we are using our silverdyne product for that at this time, the bar was ment for the intercity infrastructure . We are continuously looking for a secondary, use of the bar that is more cost effective in the villages, depending on how they store their water.
Like any situation you must look at what they’re doing now for water delivery and find a more cost effective reliable plan.
As you know one product does not fit every situation.
Since we are a wholesale manufacture it wouldn’t be prudent, to give wholesale cost on some of our product, since there is a distributor mark-up cost involved.
I hope you received the test protocols on the clay bars I sent you.
I would be happy to go over them in-depth as soon as I get back in the US on the 27th march
Reed I hope this answered your immediate questions and hope to work further with you on this endeavor.
Cordially,
Charles Veach
Hola Reed,
As a rainwater harvesting person let me congratulate you on your optimism and positive approach to try and solve the drinking water problem of India especially that of the poor.
While I agree that rooftop rainwater can be absolutely fit for drinking it has been my experience that it takes a lot of working with the community especially women to keep the rooftop catchments clean, to design good filter and to eliminate the need to remove the first 15 minutes of rain.
The reason I mention this is
- it mostly rains in the late evenings and night and in all likelihood nobody is around to open and close caps to let the rain out
- rainfall itself is limited to 15 minutes specially the more precious summer showers and there is no sense in wasting even a drop. A clean catchment and a good filter of that.
However people still will not drink rainwater because there is a widespread perception that it causes a cold.
Now that takes some convincing and includes proving that alternate sources of water is contaminated using a simple H2S strip test. See for example
Your project could also be very relevant in fluoride and arsenic affected areas where people are more willing to drink rainwater and maintain the systems See for example
If you search for zenrainman on youtube I have tried to upload some films of rooftop rainwater harvesting systems which may be of assistance to you. Say for example
Good luck on your endeavour and expect some positive competition from yours truly :):)
regards
zenrainman
Dear Reed,
Your work on a off-the shelf product for rainwater harvesting is indeed commendable. Just a couple of questions:
a) In your assessment, how do you think the pricing policies of water in India, and the pricing of water by "unscrupulous" vendors are going to matter for the success of your tanks ?
b) Do you first see this achieving market penetration with home owners (urban middle and upper classes in the indian context) and then moving to the rural/peri-urban and urban poor as markets ?
c) What are the challenges you foresee in striking partnerships with MFIs and NGOs to take this to the poor?
I am a colleague of Zen who has commented before on your kit - Please do read and comment on our entry "Water Wise: service provision to drive ecological water practices". We would like to keep in touch with you and talk of potential partnerships.
Looking forward to your reply, and good luck in your endeavors,
Regards
Avinash for Rainwater Club
Avinash,
Hello and thanks for the kind words.
It’s not fair that the well-to-do get clean water piped into their homes at low cost while the poor pay a “premium” for unsafe water. Regardless of pricing policies, for India’s poor, the abundant clean water that falls overhead comes at a price they can afford – it’s free.
I hope that once this system is available, the market for tanker water dries up. This bottom-up initiative works at the individual, family and community levels. We provide the tools, they provide their own solutions. That said, I suspect one or two people within a community of urban families will become the "rainman." They will collect, transport and recharge family water tanks. By offering a superior product and loving service at a lower price, unscrupulous vendors will be looking for work elsewhere.
It is my understanding that the well-to-do can afford safe drinking water, but, with the means to buy a system, they will be a key source of income for some franchises.
Franchises will be tasked with fulfilling demand within their assigned territory. New affiliate franchises will fan outward as potential clients conclude that the tank and rain water can solve their problems too.
Our tank enables rainwater to be collected, transported and stored just like rice or wheat. That turns rain into a commodity and each harvester into an income earner. The simple act of attaching a tank to a roof to collect rainfall is a windfall due to the potential for high yields. (Simplistically: In Bangalore a 50M roof X 800mm rain = 40,000 L. A family of 5 consuming 10 L/day needs 18000 L so they can sell 22000 L @ $.01 = $220/yr.) This makes home owners prime candidates for subsequent microloans since repayment is as predictable as the monsoon rains.
I need to study your entry before posting a comment.
I would be very interested in pursuing a partnership in the near future.
Kind regards,
Reed
Hey Zen!
Thanks for the post. Sorry for the delayed reply but I’ve been sick.
I agree. Once you have an affordable tank, it’s easy to collect high quality water. But is it really fit for consumption? The H2S test is ideal for testing a big batch of water to see if further processing is required.
But as your video points out, there are easy ways to ensure the water is safe to drink. For many rural families, running the rainwater through a fine paper filter then using SODIS will result in heavenly water with virtually no effort or expense. Others may prefer to create a slow sand filter since the availability of a low cost tank with free local materials makes this both practical and inexpensive and offers higher production rates than SODIS. Still others will prefer to use a ceramic filter or a PuR sachet.
When water is being transported to a community tank for storage, the storage facility will pass all outgoing water through a slow sand filter. This adds value, it removes a mother’s worries while reducing her chores and it increases yields since foul-flushing isn’t required.
When a community has enough systems installed, businesses offering services will appear. Crews will gladly climb up and clean a roof, clean, repair or move a tank or sheath the tank with wattle and daub - all for a small fee.
It’s true! Rainwater causes colds. But when a mother’s babies stop crying from bellyaches, her husband is working more because he’s healthier, and she feels so much better and she has some extra jingle in her purse, she’ll take that myth out with the trash and rave to the girls how one device improved so many aspects of her life. She’ll realize how fundamental safe drinking water is to a good family life and that it’s a precursor to beginning the trek out of poverty.
Reed
Cool RWH Vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWnhYIIKY0U
To paraphrase Paul Polak, “the ruthless pursuit of affordability is the keystone of effective design for poor customers.” For Heavenly Water, this pursuit is also a core part of our foundation.
Our tanks come as kits to reduce costs. In a model for farms, the framework is produced from scratch with simple tools by farmers who have lots of time and little money. Our home system tanks contain only the essential components. The owner must complete the tank using local materials and their time. Wattle and daub and thatch will provide UV protection. A dirt berm or bamboo shell toughens the exterior. Resourceful owners will make discoveries and share their tips with others.
Our systems are ruthless too! The downspout funnel is a recycled soft drink bottle. The downspout on one system is actually a garden hose that also serves as a hose and siphon. The rough filter is made from material found in any home. A slow sand filter kit comes with instructions so the owner can gather material at the local river and build the filter system almost for free. A tank shell under design comes as a kit that can also serve as a new home roof. As the cost of oil rises, we are working on designs that use 50% less plastic and others that use no plastic.
Higher income also makes things more affordable so even the uneducated can assemble tanks to sell to earn money. Water can be collected then transported and sold to earn money. Learning to assemble tanks and install systems can provide years of income and good health.
Someday soon, shiny new ad or logo adorned tanks will roll out of the factory that are “ready for rain.” Some larger sponsored tanks will produce revenue; others will be subsidized while smaller tanks will be completely free to those in need. And free is a price even the poorest customer can afford.
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Thanks for the good work you're doing. Can you please let us know about the best types of plastic to use, and those not to use? Eg. Some plastics leach materials into the water, and some do not. I've always been a little uncertain about this, and would appreciate your thoughts.
Reid Harvey
SilverCeramicSystems.com
Alfred, NY USA
+508 246-1185
Hi Reed,
I'm the founder & director of a tree faming social enterprise in Kilifi, Kenya (called KOMAZA). We provide poor farm families with eucalyptus farm inputs on credit, education for successful planting and maintenance, and complete value-capture services (harvesting, transporting, processing, and marketing trees as high-margin wood products).
Great thread--you're developing a really promising and much-needed technology. I'd like to suggest another opportunity, aside from providing water for domestic consumption, in which your tank could have incredible utility--collecting/storing water for crop irrigation. 80% of Africa's poor are farmers. The hardest to serve of these communities live in semi-arid lands where rainfall is too low and unpredictable for the traditional food crops families struggle to grow. The greatest determinant of hunger and chronic poverty in these communities is quite clearly the lack of water for farming. With more water, families could dramatically increase their yields and start farming higher-value (thirstier) crops.
A great example of how providing water dramatically increases crop yields is demonstrated by KickStart's Super Money-Maker pump--by watering their crops, existing yields are increased many fold and families can plant/sell higher-value, more nutritious crops. However, many communities in semi-arid lands without nearby streams or rivers do not have the basic requirement for using this pump--a supply of water. Your low-cost rainwater harvesting tanks may be just the solution required to store water needed for irrigating crops in semi-arid farms. The key would be building a large enough tank--10,000-50,000+ liters.
So in addition to having great utility for providing water for domestic consumption, I feel there is great opportunity for your tanks in collecting rainwater for irrigating crops. This might also provide another financing mechanism for you--by increasing crop yields and enabling higher-value crops, your families would earn much more income--this increase in income would likely justify the initial front-end investment for buying your tank. This would make selling the tank on loan with long-term repayment very attractive.
I wish you great luck and look forward to observing your progress.
- Tevis Howard
Hey Tevis,
I agree that there is tremendous potential for rainwater harvesting to increase crop yields using drip irrigation.
The specification I wrote early in this project was based primarily on the needs of farm families since they are the largest group in dire need of safe drinking water. Secondarily, because being able to store enough water to grow a second crop each year would double their income.
I developed two hand tools that enable farmers to manufacture the tank framework in their spare time. The first tank kit they purchase would include the tools and material and cost about $20. Subsequent kits would cost just $10 and contain just the material. This allows them to add storage capacity over time as money permits.
It would also provide them with a job since they would have the tools, training and experience needed to create a product of value. When you mix good health with time, tools and ability, you have the makings of those wonderful things called hope, incentive and opportunity.
The framework of the large green tank (called the M3 because it holds 1000 liters which equals a year’s supply of drinking water for one adult) was manufactured using the hand tools.
I have a 30 minute movie in which I demonstrate every major task as I turn raw material into a working tank that starts by making the framework using the simple tools. Email your mailing address to reed@heavenlywater.org and I’ll send you a CD that contains “Let’s Build A Tank” and other movies including “Proof of Concept,” and “The Funnel Siphon.”
Farmers are natural weathermen and experts at water handling. An acre of land can collect over 2,000,000 liters of rain a year. In other words, the solution to some of their biggest problems is right overhead. They just need a good container.
All the best,
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
A young mother enters a clinic holding her belly and complains to the nurse, “The river made me sick again.”
The nurse nods and reaches for some medicine. “Drink rain to have no pain,” she says pointing to words on a flyer on the wall. “They give free lessons on market day. You get to make a rain tank and take it home. It’s free thanks to a NGO,” she says drawing water from a tank so the girl can take a pill. “I built this tank,” the nurse says victoriously, “and so can you.”
“Me!” she says scrutinizing the tank.
“Don’t fear, it’s easy,” the nurse assures. The girl takes her pill and glances at the tank saying, “I hate bellyaches.”
Franchises will host workshops that teach locals how to build small tanks, collect rain, manage the water, and practice good hygiene. Women get 200 L tanks for free while men can purchase kits at a discount to assemble and sell from home.
Hosting classes will increase the franchise’s revenues due to kit sales. It will also train future crew workers, remove people’s fears and empower women. It will also lead to sales of systems, storage tanks, accessories and services for the franchise in the future.
Rural India will benefit the most from this program. When farmers take kits home to assemble and sell, they become the distribution network. They also become skilled in rain collection and storage. At some point they will be ready for larger tanks and systems. This in turn will lead to a need for a community storage tank. And that leads to bigger vegetable gardens, more livestock to sell, a second crop, a life rich in water and/or sales of water to nearby towns. And no more stomach aches.
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Hi Reed,
I didn't see any mention, perhaps I missed it, but I wonder if there would be an issue with bacteria or other types of growths on the surface either as the water was drawn down or even if the water remained at a high level?
Oh, I do like your organization's name!
Thank you,
Brian
Hey Brian,
Great question. Thanks.
Ever catch raindrops in your mouth as a child? It was fun and rain is safe to drink. It is nature’s elixir and practically a fountain of youth compared to other unprotected natural sources like lakes, rivers and open wells.
It’s the drop’s landing that it causes problems. Rainwater is so pristine, it aggressively absorbs minerals and chemicals it touches. This makes that pure drop an ideal environment for bacteria too. For rainwater harvesting, it is important to divert the first 15 minutes of rain hitting a roof away from the tank. This cleans the roof of most bacteria laden contaminates like bird droppings, dead bugs and debris. Rain can then pass through a rough filter on its way into the tank and the water is safe to drink, according to WHO. Some (mostly harmless) bacteria will still reach the tank so we would like to partner with a group to provide a filtration device option for families with newborns and infants.
Also, water, like wine, gets better with age. Bacteria need to eat, but once all the food is gone they die, which improves the water.
Our tanks have a tight cover that prevents bacteria, contaminates, sunlight, critters and kids from entering the tank and this keeps the water fresh throughout the dry season.
Thanks again,
Reed
P.S. The name Heavenly Water was my mom's idea. I'll tell her you like it. Thankx
The number of people needing safe drinking water is staggering. More than twice the population of the US needs safe water in India alone. Ten factories could not fulfill the dire need for rainwater harvesting systems. Far better is a value network that distributes material and support to local franchises that can deliver products that generate a profit for them and safe drinking water, a higher income and better health for families.
One franchise per 1,000 homes translates into 72,000 franchises installing 1 system a day and 1 storage tank a week. Each franchise will employ 10-20 people in good jobs with good pay that requires little training and no education. Nice!
This approach has many other advantages:
- It provides “genuine” tanks that meet safety standards to counter the substandard black-market tanks that will appear
- Material is market driven making supplies more reliable
- It promotes custom solutions like catchment systems and specialized tanks
- It will increase local capacity in trades like cement workers, roofers and plumbers
Franchises present sales opportunities beyond the microfinance solution:
- Direct sales to the community
- Leasable storage tanks for construction sites
- Rentable transport tanks for seasonal hauling
NGOs can do good from afar
- A NGO in NYC can email a loan agreement to a microfinance firm in India that then provides the cash to the local franchise to install a rainwater harvesting system on a new clinic
The franchise can fill local demand for tanks and projects calling for their expertise
- Water & waste treatment facilities
- Water & sewage infrastructure projects
- Industrial tanks and systems
- Indoor & roof tanks and systems for business
- Silo, coop and fencing sales and service
Community tank assembly, system installation and healthcare training
- Reduces system costs for families
- Empowerment/job training
- Home water management, safe handling and hygiene training
- Disaster mitigation through material stockpiling and a skilled workforce
Turning safe drinking water into a commodity is very doable. With the recent development of a low cost water tank kit, most homeowners can now easily collect high quality water to consume and/or sell. Being able to sell something harvested from your roof is like money from heaven.
To turn this harvest into a cash crop, the product has to reach the market, and in India, people are the pipeline through which goods flow. An enterprise becomes more vital and sustainable when more groups in the community have a stake in its success.
Rickshaw drivers are the pipeline by which water flows from home to storage tank during the rainy season. They are also the pipeline through which water flows from storage tank to homes during the dry season.
Work crews are the pipeline through which kits go from factory to shop to home. During the process, they do the assembly, installation and maintenance for which they earn a nice living. They also provide these services to businesses, schools, clinics, churches and so on.
Charity after charity has concluded that giving a handpump to the needy does not work. They have no ownership, no capacity building, and often little ongoing support. However, if you could turn that pump into a moneymaker, it would almost never be broken for long. Our rainwater harvesting system uses gravity, the weather, and it has no moving parts. It is just a moneymaker and a health provider.
Mothers are already expert water managers, so they already know how to squeeze every drop of water from the tank if it means better health, less work and more money for the family. Study after study has shown that people will pay for water. So the question is will they pay a premium for high quality water from a fastidious mother with healthy children? What’d ya say we build the system and find out.
It’s just amazing. A billion people are crying and dying due to a lack of safe drinking water. Remarkably, the solution is right overhead. Rain is heavenly water. It is an elixir and a curative and possibly nature’s finest renewable resource. But without a way to collect it while it’s safe to drink, the world’s poor can only watch it collect in the river where it becomes very dangerous. Since everyone must drink water, they drink it. And then they get sick. And many even die.
Our water tank solves this horrible problem. It enables families to collect the water that lands on their roof and store it for consumption throughout the dry season. When it rains, it pours, so our system enables them to turn this liquid asset into a savings account. Selling this surplus provides desperately needed income for the family and the means to repay the microloan for the system that brought them good health and good fortune.
Here’s how - A group of neighborhood families get microloans for systems while another neighbor gets a microloan to start a water storage business. Rainwater collected by the families during the monsoon season goes into the storage tank. During the dry season, families withdraw drinking water from the tank to stay water healthy year-round. They sell the surplus water to families that recently received a microloan for a system. When their system is installed, it includes enough purchased drinking water to last until the rains start. They sell water to the group the next year and the cycle is repeated until everyone owns a system.
This “pay it forward” system ensures quality water, loan repayment, good health, higher income and many other benefits for individuals and families. Solving the problem one family at a time means this bottom up solution works for those living at the bottom of the pyramid. But it also means the problem has to be solved millions of times …
Hi Reed, Great discussion around your work! Could you give a more in depth description of your step by step go to market plan? How will you market, sell and distribute your product? Thank you.
Dana Frasz
Changemakers
Currently, the home plumbing system consists of a mother or daughter, jug in hand, bound for the river, tap or well on yet another water fetching trip.
When our woven wire tank enters the picture, rickshaw mounted tanks will fetch 30 jugs of water in a single trip, freeing some daughters to attend school.
When our rainwater harvesting kit is assembled and installed, safe drinking water will be delivered to the home free of charge by mother nature.
When the community storage tank enters the picture, water transport will initially be done by rickshaw. But over time, and with income from water sales, neighborhoods will install plumbing lines running from each home to a staging tank sitting beside the community tank.
When the operator opens a value, gravity sends water flowing through pipes that fill tanks located in each home on the neighborhood grid. The operator then closes the value and begins preparing for tomorrow’s delivery by refilling the staging tank with water coming from a slow sand filter tank that is filled from the community tank.
During the monsoon season, the flow direction will be revered. Families will pipe collected rainwater into their indoor tank which will flow to the staging tank where it will be pumped into the storage tank.
Leaks, illegal taps, and poor water quality will be a thing of the past due to vigilant neighbors. And once the community can manage a fresh water system, they may want to install a sewage system so they can enjoy all the benefits of indoor plumbing.
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Hi Reed,
While I applaud your ingenuity and your desire to incentivize the collection of rainwater, I am very concerned about the numbers you are using and their impact on the financial sustainability of your project in India.
If I understand you correctly, you are proposing that a rickshaw driver can collect and then sell water in an urban area for something between one half and two cents per liter. I just don't think that is feasible in most circumstances. The Delhi Jal Board (Water Board), for example, currently pipes water directly to households and charges only about 2 Rs/kiloliter (5 cents per thousand liters) while your cost (even at the half cent per liter still works out to about five dollars per thousand liters. Yes, I recognize that Delhi provides very high subsidies (which usually go to the rich instead of the poor) but even if we were to increase the Delhi Jal Board's cost by ten fold, we are still talking 5 dollars per kiloliter for your water vs. 50 cents for Municipal water. This just does not look like a sustainable proposition. I also recognize that prices vary from city to city but nowhere have I seen bulk sales as high as the prices you are quoting. Please let me know If you think I have misunderstood your proposal but I think we have a serious problem here.
Regards,
David
Hi David,
Thanks for the great comment. It is my understanding that city water isn’t piped into the homes of slum dwellers and that it isn’t fit for human consumption anyway, so we are really talking apples and oranges here, it’s just that my apples look a lot like oranges.
The question is, given a new technology, how will urban slum dwellers utilize it? The Indian people are very enterprising and resourceful, so it is likely that mobile catchment, water vending by rickshaw and retail water stores will appear in short order once the tank is available.
While the water may appear to be expensive, that is compared to what? Currently the primary sources of safe drinking water for slum dwellers are soft drinks, chai and bottled water and bottled water isn’t listed as an improved source because the poor can’t afford it. So what are they willing to pay for safe drinking water? Is four cents a day to keep an infant free of water related illness too much? Ask the infant’s mother. She may well call it a bargain. And since this water will be free market priced, competition will keep the price as low as possible.
When large volumes of rainwater can be collected and stored, they can be monitored and processed to ensure purity. When city services can only provide unfit running water a few hours a day, isn’t a new and improved source of city water desperately needed? Especially when it operates independent of the municipal infrastructure.
If my numbers are correct, it would take just 2% of Mumbai’s population 100 hours to collect a year’s supply of safe drinking water for the populace if storage capacity were available. Thus, Mumbai doesn’t have a supply problem or even a delivery problem, it has a storage problem.
Rainwater harvesting can’t solve India’s water problems, but it can, by and large, solve its safe drinking water problem.
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Rainwater harvesting is cyclical. When the rains begin, tanks fill, which makes it the ideal time to distribute new systems. After all, who’d want a water tank that would be bone dry for months. Yet except for donated or purchased systems, large scale distribution during the rainy season isn’t practical, sustainability or scalable because farmers are planting, people need steady work, and the sudden demand would be unmanageable.
So year-round distribution is the ticket and here’s how . . . A microfinance institution qualifies a small group of neighbors for systems based on factors like roof type, household size, special needs and so on. The MFI also provides a microloan to start a 250,000 L community water storage business near these neighbors.
A home with a 75 sq M roof that gets 750 cm of rainfall can collect 45,000 L of water a year that gets stored in the community tank. At 10 L per person per day, a typical family will need 20,075 liters that first year. This provides a surplus of 25,000 L which has a value of $125 (@ $.005/L.) that is used to pay off the microloan.
This surplus water will provide 3 L per person per day of safe drinking water for 6 homes and keep each family water-healthy till the rains start, when their daily use goes up to 10 L per person per day. The water’s cost of $40 is included in the microloan for their new system. A markup of $.005 per L on the water provided enables the water storage business to pay off its microloan.
Thus, over five years, a region might experience system adoption like this: 1,000, 6,000, 36,000, 216,000, 1,296,000. Replicated in enough regions and the effect is pronounced, especially given that each system represents about 5 family members who are enjoying better health, safe drinking water, higher income and ownership of a rainwater harvesting system.
George Washington University
Faculty
Very interesting point. Linking it with microfinance may be the key. You may have heard of "micro-franchizing" that has this concept. May want to look it up.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention Dr. Sud!
Rainwater harvesting and micro-franchising fit nicely together because safe drinking water, when harvested from the sky, can produce income for a family living in a house with a good roof.
This livelihoods approach to health, wealth and well-being will be a windfall for families. Mothers are already skilled water managers, so leveraging these skills to maximize income is fairly simple. For example she could test a fresh batch of rainwater using the simple H2S test and find that, because she keeps a clean roof, the water is safe to drink without further processing. This increases income when selling the water since it doesn’t need further refinement to be safe to drink. Or say the family gets a slow sand filter and processes water at home to sell. Isn’t this water worth more since it comes from a trusted neighbor who has a reputation for collecting and processing her water to the highest standards? After all, you can see her kids are healthy and therefore feel good buying her water.
This livelihoods approach to income creation will be a windfall for communities as well. Just as silos store harvested grain in Kansas, tanks can store harvested water in India. And building a local infrastructure will result in new local enterprises like brick making or a public laundry or bath house or low cost water for vegetable gardens, or to reduce the impact of a drought. Building local infrastructure using local hands can provide the impetus for workers to learn more advanced skills like roofing or tank building, so they can do off-season construction work in the city. Local infrastructure opens the door to more regional commerce and communication and work-free days for children so they can get an education.
So micro-franchising may be a ticket to relative health, wealth and well-being for families initially, and for their communities thereafter, and that’s a win-win for everyone.
George Washington University
Faculty
I am delighted that you have chosen to focus on this important subject. It remains an under-exploited subject and its potential is far from being exploited. However, you focus entirely on technology (i.e. an affordable tank) as the critical factor that can spur adoption of rainwater harvesting. I think you may want also to look at social, environmental and cultural factors. In the poor urban communities, there is often a lack of space for the tanks. The roof structures also do not lend themselves to collection of rainwater. One may need to organize communities to use common facilities such as a school or a temple to collect water fro the community. They will need to organize themselves in some form as "water users" to be able to collect charges for maintenance and for appropriate sharing. Some specific examples of how this can be done, what the charges should be, etc. would be good.
The middle and upper income families can do much more in rainwater harvesting but thyey don't. In part, this is because of the fact that the municipal water is very inexpensive. There are also superstitions about "stale" water. Contamination by animal and bird feces is also a concern. So examining barriers to adoption by such groups would be useful. You may know that building codes in many Indian cities require installation of rainwater harvesting. But these regulations are largely ignored. How do you overcome these problems.
In summary, I very much like your idea. But I think you should think about overcoming barriers to adoption beyond just technology.
Thank you for your kind words. I agree with all you say. This vast and complex subject needs more space that an application can provide.
With over 300 million Indians living in city slums, this is a critical issue. Please refer to my comment titled Rainwater Collection in an Urban Setting which addresses this very issue. Mumbai doesn’t have a water problem as the district of Colaba got over 2 meters of rain during the 07 monsoon season. What it has is a water storage problem that this innovation can in part solve. It is almost a tragedy that more hasn’t been done in this regard. It is possible that the primary reason is simple economics? Tanks are very expensive to build – until now.
If a small shop were to open that bought rainwater, hordes of people would become experts in rainwater collection, storage, transport, and management when it starts raining money. So maybe the simplest way of making it culturally acceptable is to make it a cultural no-brainer by making it money-maker open to every slum dweller, child, and illiterate person as rainwater harvesting does once an affordable tank is available.
I agree that social, cultural and adoption issues are important but ask someone living in abject poverty what’s most important and the answer usually is money, water, food, shelter or safety rather than cultural integrity. Ask a mother with a sick baby what’s most important and it’s medicine over food or gifts for a festival almost every time.
I can’t help but feel that the simplest solution to India’s safe drinking water crisis and the cultural, economic and social issues, is for the government to set a minimum value for a liter of rainwater, but this is an exercise in futility until an affordable storage system is available.
Thanks again for your comments. - Reed
I've spoken about your project to a couple of friends and we were all very curious curious as to how potable rain water was in India, I presume it would vary across the developing world. Does rain water translate into drinking water without a filtration system? If I understand it correctly, there isn't a filtration system in your tanks. Also, since 2006, how many units have you sold? I would love to get a feel for the impact of your project.
Thank you for your response and keep up the good work!
Tyler
Hi Tyler,
Thanks for your interest in our system. According to WHO in Guidelines for drinking-water quality V 3 on pg. 99 “Rainwater collected from clean house roofs can be of better microbiological quality than water collected from untreated household wells.”
Yes, keeping roofs and rainwater clean in a jungle environment is harder than say a savanna or desert. Less surface water means less bugs, bird dropping and debris. Training homeowners in proper roof, tank and water management techniques is an important aspect of this system.
The WHO guidelines also recommends “not collecting the first 5 - 10 minutes of rainfall to clean the roof and using filtering devices and a good tank to keep the water clean.” Our system has a foul flush and filtering device on the downspout. A ceramic or colloidal filter can be attached to the tank to further process and purify the water. An alternative is to add a small tank to the system to serve as a slow sand filter. When collected rainwater goes straight in a community tank, it can be unfiltered water, as long as the community tank uses a slow sand filter.
Also, like wine, rainwater improves with age. Matter settles and once the microbes consume all the food, they die. Unlike ground or surface water, rainwater has virtually no pollutants such as industrial chemicals like nitrate or natural chemicals like arsenic. That said, once you can store water, you can process and purify it, and this includes surface, ground or tap water.
After years of R & D & T, phase 1 is now complete, and we are looking for seed funding to do a pilot project and field trials.
Thanks again,
Reed
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Heavenlywater.org - Making life waterful
Thank you so much for clarifying, I love that this can also be such an enlightening and educational forum! I believe you will find in due time that many water filtration entries will come in. Partnership opportunities will abound among the myriad of entrants. Best of luck to you and I hope for lots of seed funding for your field trials!
Best,
Tyler
The development of a low cost water tank makes multi-tank systems viable and storing water by grade has many advantages. Homes can keep drinking water in one tank, cooking water in another, cleaning water in another, and gray water in another.
This equates to storing water by source such as drinking water from rain, cleaning water from the river, and cooking water comes from a public tap. When water sources become more numerous and diverse, the more a family can count on having a steady supply.
Efficient usage through reuse means few trips to the river and lower costs. In a town this also reduces demand on overtaxed public utilities. Examples of reuse include dish, bath and cleaning water, water to wash and soak lentils, water to clean just picked vegetables headed to market and tainted roof run off for irrigation.
Good water management by recycling also reduces trips to the river and water costs. Examples of recycling include the irrigation water tank that gets filled from other sources and the fertilizer tank that, like wine, improves with time.
While the rainwater tanks must be large to provide the family with enough drinking water to last the dry season, tanks for other purposes can be much smaller. A 100 liter reserve of river water means water fetching trips can occur when circumstances permit, rather than when the container is dry. Having a small transport tank to place on a wagon bound for the river can save from 3 to 30 water fetching trips. Having a stockpile of water will ensue that rainwater remains for drinking and doesn’t get used for cleaning. When the tank’s cost is less than the value of its contents, you can justify building a backup tank in case one springs a leak.
But the most quenching reason to own a multi-tank system is for “water security,” which feels a lot like “peace of mind.”
Hauling goods by rickshaw in the rain is not good business. Cardboard boxes become soggy and goods get wet.
Using a rickshaw to collect rainwater is good business. Our 500 liter tank weighs just 20 lbs, making it ideal for transporting water via rickshaw. The driver loads an empty tank, a catchment tarp, 4 bamboo poles and stakes onto his rickshaw. He then pedals to an open location like a park, an open field, an empty lot and erects the tarp using the poles that are held fast with guy lines staked to the ground. A hole in the tarp’s center sits over the tank and has tie downs to hold it in place. The rain falls onto this 7 meter square catchment, through the hole and into the tank.
During the monsoon season in Mumbai, the daily deluge often totals 10 centimeters, meaning the tank will fill with pure water within hours. The full tank weights 1100 lbs which is the maximum weight a rickshaw can carry.
He then disassembles and stows his gear and peddles to a storage facility to sell the water. If it sells for just one half cent US per liter, his take is $2.50 for three hours work while the daily wage of a rickshaw driver is about $2.00 Collecting drinking water doubles that day's income by making a downtime fruitful.
An urban water storage facility consists of a 500,000 tank and an operator. If the retail operation sells 1800 liters a day during the dry season at $.02 per liter, the net income is $22.00 a day after water costs and micro loan repayment. Selling water door-to-door from a rickshaw is also viable and it has many advantages.
An urban mother benefits because a day’s supply of safe drinking water for her infant costs just $.04 (2L) and $.06 (3L) for herself.