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Wellness

How often should you wash your water bottle? A doctor finally settles the fierce debate

Your water bottle is a germ haven.

Image via Canva/Africa Images

This is how often you should be washing your reusable water bottle.

Staying hydrated has never been easier thanks to reusable water bottles. But one of the biggest downsides to using water bottles is having to wash them. And if we're honest, most of us probably go *way too long* between uses before giving them a deep cleaning.

You may be curious about how often you should be washing your water bottle—and the possible negative health effects that can happen if you neglect to. Unfortunately, if you simply rinse and re-fill without thoroughly washing with soap and water—it's not cutting it.

"Wash it with soap and warm water at least every other day," says Dr. Shanina C. Knighton, PhD, RN, CIC, Research Associate Professor, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University. She adds that if you drink anything beyond just plain water—such as adding lemon to water, adding flavor to it, protein drinks or coffee--then your water bottle should be washed immediately and daily.

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"Sugar loves yeast, mold, and bacteria and when water bottles are left with fluids sitting in them for days odors can occur," says Dr. Knighton.

Your water bottle can quickly become a petri dish as bacteria settles in, forming a biofilm (a slimy film or thin coating of germs). "This biofilm protects bacteria from casual rinsing, which is why that weird taste and smell develops even when you are 'just using water' to clean it out," she adds.

Failing to properly wash your water bottle can lead to sickness as bacteria continues to grow and comes in contact with your mouth. "Unwashed bottles can harbor dangerous bacteria, including E. coli, Salmonella and Staphylococcus. Mold and yeast can accumulate in bottles that are stored while damp."

Dr. Knighton adds that an upset stomach (nausea, vomiting and diarrhea) or food poisoning symptoms can stem from a dirty water bottle. "We know the impact of mold are attached to respiratory issues. Even something such as a rash around the mouth or skin infection can occur," she says.

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How to wash your water bottle

Warm water is best to clean your water bottle—and washing with cold water is not recommended. "Cold water does not break down bacteria or any oils and residues that may be in bottles," says Dr. Knighton. "If the water is too hot, excessive heat can damage plastic or can weaken rubber water seals."

You should also be hand-washing your water bottles. "I do not recommend harsh chemicals and the use of a dishwasher for water bottles. Given the depth of water bottles adequate cleaning may happen best if by hand," adds Dr. Knighton. "I always suggest to check the manufacturer's suggestions for cleaning."

water bottle, stanley cup, water bottles, reusable water bottle, how to clean water bottle Dakota Johnson Snl GIF by Saturday Night Live Giphy

To properly wash your water bottle, you can also use vinegar instead of soap:

Fill your bottle halfway with white vinegar, top with warm water and let it sit for about 30 minutes.
"It can help with any bacteria or crusty build ups that may be hard to reach inside of bottles," says Dr. Knighton.
She also suggests investing in a bottle brush to help you get to areas that are hard to reach with a sponge or dish towel, such as straws, lids or mouthpieces.
Always allow your bottles to adequately dry before putting the caps back on.
"Hang them upside down on a rack where they are not touching the surface," says Dr. Knighton. "If you put the tops back on them before allowing them to dry you are trapping moisture, which can become a breeding ground for germs."

Finally, Dr. Knighton recommends that you replace your water bottles if you see any mold spots or if the rubber seals become worn down or hard to clean.

Happy hydrating!

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Science

Amazing WaterCube invention can create up to 100 gallons of water a day out of thin air

Say goodbye to your water bills.

via Genesis Systems and Karolina Grabowska/Pexels

Genesis Systems' WaterCube.

A seriously impressive piece of technology grabbed a lot of attention at this year's CES trade show convention in Las Vegas, Genesis Systems’ WaterCube. It’s a home and office appliance that’s about the size of an A/C unit and can produce up to 100 gallons of water daily from thin air. That’s the amount of water used by a typical family of 4.

The amount of water it can produce depends on the humidity levels, but Genesis Systems says it can even create water in dry environments. Much like solar panels provide energy independence, this does the same for water.

"Our first mission is to sustainably solve global water scarcity," said David Stuckenberg, who founded Genesis with his wife, Shannon, told Techxplore. "Once you have this plugged into your house...you can turn yourself off (from) the city water."

"One of the challenges that we're facing, in terms of making humanity sustainable, is the stuff we need for life," he said, according to Techxplore. "Next to air, water is the most important thing."

— (@)

The WC-100 WaterCube stands more than 3 feet tall, weighs close to 600 pounds and will cost around $20,000 to pre-order. So, even though you may not have a water bill anymore, you will have a pretty expensive monthly payment plan on a WaterCube for a few years.

But once it’s paid off, your water is free as long as you own the appliance.

Genesis Systems believes that the WaterCube creates “an infinite water source” that is “democratizing the water supply.”

This article originally appeared last year.

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Sustainability

Scientists tested 3 popular bottled water brands for nanoplastics using new tech, and yikes

The results were alarming—an average of 240,000 nanoplastics per 1 liter bottle—but what does it mean for our health?

Suzy Hazelwood/Canva

Columbia University researchers tested bottled water for nanoplastics and found hundreds of thousands of them.

Evian, Fiji, Voss, SmartWater, Aquafina, Dasani—it's impressive how many brands we have for something humans have been consuming for millennia. Despite years of studies showing that bottled water is no safer to drink than tap water, Americans are more consuming more bottled water than ever, to the tune of billions of dollars in bottled water sales.

People cite convenience and taste in addition to perceived safety for reasons they prefer bottle to tap, but the fear factor surrounding tap water is still a driving force. It doesn't help when emergencies like floods cause tap water contamination or when investigations reveal issues with lead pipes in some communities, but municipal water supplies are tested regularly, and in the vast majority of the U.S., you can safely grab a glass of water from a tap.

And now, a new study on nanoplastics found in three popular bottled water brands is throwing more data into the bottled vs. tap water choice

Researchers from Columbia University used a new laser-guided technology to detect nanoplastics that had previously evaded detection due to their miniscule size.

The new technology can detect, count and analyze and chemical structure of nanoparticles, and they found seven different major types of plastic: polyamide, polypropylene, polyethylene, polymethyl methacrylate, polyvinyl chloride, polystyrene, and polyethylene terephthalate.

In contrast to a 2018 study that found around 300 plastic particles in an average liter of bottled water, the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in January of 2024 found 240,000 nanoplastic particles per liter bottle on average between the three brands studied. (The name of the brands were not indicated in the study.)

As opposed to microplastics, nanoplastics are too small to be seen by microscope. Their size is exactly why experts are concerned about them, as they are small enough to invade human cells and potentially disrupt cellular processes.

Columbia researchers found that bottled water contains hundreds of thousands of previously uncounted plastic particles\u2014particles small enough to pass into the bloodstream and travel directly into our organs.\nhttps://t.co/NoC70dLakV
— (@)

“Micro and nanoplastics have been found in the human placenta at this point. They’ve been found in human lung tissues. They’ve been found in human feces; they’ve been found in human blood,” study coauthor Phoebe Stapleton, associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Rutgers University’s Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy told CNN Health,

We know that nanoplastics are making their way into our bodies. We just don't have enough research yet on what that means for our health, and we still have more questions than answers. How many nanoplastics does it take to do damage and/or cause disease? What kinds of damage or disease might they cause? Is whatever effect they might have cumulative? We simply don't have answers to these questions yet.

That's not to say there's no cause for concern.

We do know that certain levels of microplastic exposure have been shown to adversely affect the viability of cells. Nanoplastics are even smaller—does that mean they are more likely to cause cellular damage? Science is still working that out.

According to Dr. Sara Benedé of the Spanish National Research Council’s Institute of Food Science Research, it's not just the plastics themselves that might cause damage, but what they may bring along with them. “[Microparticles and nanoparticles] have the ability to bind all kinds of compounds when they come into contact with fluids, thus acting as carriers of all kinds of substances including environmental pollutants, toxins, antibiotics, or microorganisms,” Dr. Benedé told Medical News Today.

water plastic bottle on seashorePhoto by Brian Yurasits on Unsplash

Where is this plastic in water coming from?

This study focused on bottled water, which is almost always packaged in plastic. The filters used to filter the water before bottling are also frequently made from plastic.

Is it possible that some of these nanoplastics were already present in the water from their original sources? Again, research is always evolving on this front, but microplastics have been detected in lakes, streams and other freshwater sources, so it's not a big stretch to imagine that nanoplastics may be making their way into freshwater ecosystems as well. However, microplastics are found at much higher levels in bottled water than tap water, so it's also not a stretch to assume that most of the nanoplastics are likely coming from the bottling process and packaging rather than from freshwater sources.

assorted bottled waters on shelfPhoto by Giuseppe Famiani on Unsplash

The reality is, though, we simply don't know yet.

“Based on other studies we expected most of the microplastics in bottled water would come from leakage of the plastic bottle itself, which is typically made of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic,” lead author Naixin Qian, a doctoral student in chemistry at Columbia University, told CNN Health. “However, we found there’s actually many diverse types of plastics in a bottle of water, and that different plastic types have different size distributions. The PET particles were larger, while others were down to 200 nanometers, which is much, much smaller.”

We need to drink water, and we need to drink safe water. At this point, we have plenty of environmental reasons for avoiding bottled water unless absolutely necessary and opting for tap water instead. Even if there's still more research to be done, the presence of hundreds of thousands of nanoplastics in bottled water might just be another reason to make the switch.

This article originally appeared on 2.2.24

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Health

Why the classic '8 glasses of water a day' needs to be debunked once and for all.

For many, this could be too much water. Experts say there's a much easier way to get your daily hydration needs met.

Photo by MART PRODUCTION/Pexels

Are we drinking too much water or not enough?

We all know that humans need water to survive, but how much just plain water do we actually need to consume each day to be healthy?

If your instinct is to say 6 to 8 glasses of water a day, you're not alone. For many of us, that figure has been ingrained into us since we were kids by health class teachers, family doctors and concerned caregivers alike.

However, needing 8 glasses a day of water is a total and complete myth.

Despite being deeply embedded in our collective conscience, there's little to no scientific evidence to back up the idea that drinking 8 glasses—or any specific number of ounces—of water per day is ideal. This fact might take a minute to digest, since these days so many of us carry water bottles measured in specific ounces to help us stay hydrated and may even track our water consumption with an app or daily planner.

Knowing how many ounces of water we should drink and tracking how much we do drink may give us a satisfying sense of control, but it's largely meaningless. According to the Mayo Clinic, staying hydrated isn't so much about how much water you drink but about how much fluid you consume overall, including from foods and beverages besides water. And that amount is different for every person because every person's body is different.

Additionally, our circumstances are different each day. If you're exercising or sweating from the heat, your body's hydration needs change. If you're sick, pregnant or breastfeeding, your hydration needs change. Certain medications can alter how much fluid your body needs, as can a high-salt diet.

But there must be some kind of guideline, right? We can't just be willy nilly drinking water whenever we feel like it in the age of step counts and sleep tracking apps, can we?

woman drinking a glass of water Feeling thirsty?Photo by Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

Inadequate hydration is linked to early aging and chronic disease, among other things, so it's important to get enough fluids. The U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine lists adequate daily fluid intake as:

- About 15.5 cups (3.7 liters) of fluids a day for men

- About 11.5 cups (2.7 liters) of fluids a day for women

That doesn't mean that's how much water you should drink. Fluids can be found in food—many fruits and vegetables are high in water content and count toward hydration. Any milk you drink and even yogurt or cottage cheese you consume adds to your fluid intake. Soups and broths? Super hydrating. Other beverages, even ones that contain caffeine as long as you don't overdo it, count as well. And again, those numbers are just a general guideline. Your body size, overall health, environment and lifestyle all influence your own specific hydration needs.

Some doctors point out that we have a natural mechanism to tell us when we aren't well-hydrated—thirst. "Drink when you're thirsty" may sound like basic advice, but it's what many physicians recommend. However, thirst is a sign that your body is already mildly dehydrated, so some recommend drinking before you get thirsty as well.

Just don't go too far that way, either. Another common myth is that you can't drink too much water, but that's not true. A tragedy in 2023 in which a healthy mother of two drank four bottles of water in about 20 minutes and died of water intoxication highlighted the importance of not drinking too much water too fast. And drinking an excess of water overall, though rarely a problem for well-nourished adults, can make it hard for your kidneys to process properly.

One way to gauge your hydration level besides monitoring thirst is to check your pee. While it doesn't need to be clear(contrary to popular belief) it shouldn't be dark. According to Healthline 's handy hydration chart, "lemonade" is about the shade you're looking for. Too clear means you're probably overhydrating. Darker than a light beer and it's time to up your liquid intake a bit.

Water is good. Hydration is important. Pay attention to thirst. Shoot for lemonade-shade pee. That ought to keep you on the right track for getting enough liquid without having to keep track of how many glasses or ounces of water you drink each day.

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Pop Culture

10 luxuries many people don't think of as luxuries

Lots to be thankful for here.

Photos by Lisa Fotios/Pexels and Ketut Subiyanto/Pexels

It's easy to take a lot of these things for granted.

When we think of the word luxury, we might conjure up images of mansions, high-thread-count sheets or designer handbags. We probably don't picture something as simple as walking to our kitchen to get a glass of water.

But for many people, even here in the U.S., having filtered drinking water pouring out of a spout in your home is a luxury.

Merriam-Webster defines a "luxury" as "something adding to pleasure or comfort but not absolutely necessary." Water is a necessity. Having it always available a few steps from wherever you're sitting is not. And there are many things that we think of as basics, simply because we've always had them, that others live without and would consider a luxury.

Someone on Reddit asked, "What’s a luxury that many people don’t realize is a luxury?" and the answers are making people feel grateful for things they might have taken for granted.

Drinkable water straight from the tap

Let's start with the most basic one, which isn't basic at all when you think about it.

"My graduate advisor (in the southeastern USA) taught a class on edible invertebrates, they would learn about a group of invertebrate animals each week and then eat them. The very first week he gave each student a glass of tap water and had them drink it. Then he told them that they were in a small percentage of people worldwide who could do what they just did and not have to worry about ingesting any number of critters. I TA'd that class the next year and it was pretty fun, although the pickled jellyfish was absolutely foul to me. 25 years later and I still remember that lesson."

"Exactly! Just turning on any faucet and being able to drink the water. I don’t think people realize how much of the world still has to walk somewhere to get water, and then has to make it safe to drink."

"Or the places that have tap water but still have to boil it anyways. People really don't realize how lucky they are to turn on a tap and have water they can drink without taking extra steps to not get sick or die."

Hot water on demand

The fact that we are able to adjust our water temperature to whatever we want it to be on demand? Incredible.

"I'm a plumber and we occasionally get calls on the weekend with people literally panicking because they don't have hot water. 'I have a sink full of dishes, I don't know what I'm going to do helllllp.' I think about people in other parts of the world surviving just fine without hot water, or even running water for that matter."

"Yep as a kid we didn't have a hot water heater , mom had a huge pot she would boil on the stove and then dump that in the bathtub. I think I was about 8 when at a Friend's house in town they had running hot water. It blew me away, how cool is this."

"My hot water heater stopped working today and I laughed at myself as I dramatically hyped myself up before rinsing shampoo out of my hair. I wouldn’t have made it 200 years ago…"

Good health

The often overlooked one that's probably the most important one of all.

"Most people absolutely do not appreciate the value of having good health until it gets taken away from them."

"Yeah, being able to just get on with your life without worrying about a chronic illness is definitely a luxury. Hell it's one many would trade being born in a 1st world country for."

"As someone who gets a new autoimmune disease every 7-10 years, this one is number one for me. It's changed the trajectory of everything I ever wanted to do with my life."

"I kinda hate that I took it for granted - until I got sick. Well, I was born with a genetic disorder, but it didn’t affect me (or was known about) until I was 40. Now I’m 50 and spend 90% of my days in bed. But I have had a fun and fulfilling life before that, I’m extremely grateful for that."

Laundry machines

Miraculous. (And yet we still complain about doing laundry, don't we?)

"The apartment I'm living in now has an in-unit washer AND dryer. It's amazing. I can throw a load in, no worrying about quarters or getting it switched over before someone else tries to use it. No carrying laundry baskets to the apartment basement, no one stealing my laundry or tide pods."

"Yup. I lived in a rural area of Brazil for a while. We used buckets to wash our clothes then line dried."

"Soooo true. The amount of time it saves?? You can throw a load in and leave the house. Or do another chore. Or anything you want. It’s amazing."

"The invention of the washing machine led to an average reduction in house work by women of 8 hours per week, effectively adding a full workday for women to be able to do different things. This helped to accelerate women’s rights."

Shopping for groceries without checking prices

If you've never had to take a calculator to the grocery store, consider yourself lucky.

"This is when I realized I was doing ok. When I went shopping or out to eat and never looked at or worried about the prices."

"I feel this. There were times I used to sit outside of the store and just cry, wondering how I would get enough food for the week. I used a calculator meticulously to make sure I wouldn’t be embarrassed at checkout. At times I ate nothing but sandwiches (thanks to the bread outlet!) and ramen noodles. My then-partner and I would share one grilled cheese and one can of soup for a nice weekend meal. Going out was incredibly rare. Only birthdays, really, and then we shared food. Now, I never forget those times because I am blessed enough that I can eat whatever food I want. I can afford all of the bills AND gas for my car. I can pay for car repairs instead of just hoping it works each day. I regularly help out those less fortunate and donate to the local mission, food pantry, and directly to students in need at my school. I give stuff away for free vs selling it on Marketplace. Don’t ever, ever, ever, forget how others live. It’s humbling to go through, but without the struggle we can’t fully appreciate the easier times."

"When I read this I realized this has never been a possibility for me. I don't know why it surprised me so much I guess because I'm just used to it. I can't recall even one time that I've gone to the grocery store that I didn't have to plan every penny. When I watch those weird restocking videos, I don't feel jealousy as much as horror. My brain immediately goes to how much each one of those things costs and what else they're giving up to have them. Probably because if I did that, I wouldn't have a place to live or a car."

Being able to publicly call the leader of the country an idiot with no consequences from the government

Some say free speech is not a luxury but a right. But let's not get stuck on semantics.

"This is the winner. It blows me away when I see people advocate publicly for rolling back free speech while they disparage government leaders in the same breath. The lack of awareness is insane."

"German here. Took me a while to truly grasp that. My parents always had some mean caricatures of politicians hanging on the walls.

Then I became friends with a Syrian refugee and took him to a barbecue at my parents place.

He saw a brutal caricature of Angela Merkel in the dining room and immediately pulled me to the side to ask me if this isn’t dangerous to have at home. I laughed at first till I realized he was very serious and even a little afraid that there could be consequences for him for hanging with people who openly make fun of the German government."

"This is so true. In Argentina we had a period where you'd be met with firearms if you were caught speaking badly of the government or known to be against it. Some ppl still think we were better off back then."

Open minded, loving, supportive parents

Those who have them may not realize what a huge difference good parents makes.

"This is the single most prolific factor in determining a child's success in developed countries, in my opinion. And by success, I don't just mean material success. I mean emotionally and relationally, as well as their career path.

I did a paper in college specifically about the outcomes of families with and without involved parents. The statistics are frightening. It cannot be understated how important supportive parents are for a child's development and life outcome."

"The number of people who take the good childhood they had for granted is mind-blowing."

"I still don't know what to do with this. Every time I see it, even in fiction, I realize how so many people don't know how lucky they are. I too wonder who I could have been with support and acceptance from my family. It's not easy to have to build yourself up when you weren't given the tools to do so and had to scratch it all out yourself."

8-10 hours of sleep

Ah, the bliss of a good night's sleep that you'd give an eye tooth for after you become a parent…

"Didn't even occur to me until I had my baby."

"Can’t relate to having a newborn, but insomnia is a god damn nightmare"

"I haven’t slept more than 6.5 hours a night in over almost 2 years 😩 First it was pregnancy insomnia. Then came my now-1 baby and exclusively pumping. I’m so tired y’all…"

Air conditioning

Seriously, this one is huge. If you know, you know.

"I grew up in a house without air conditioning (for the most part without even window units). I have lived in my current house for almost ten years now and the central air still feels like a 'rich people' thing."

"I honestly didn't know this, until I saw a case on The People's Court where a tenant was complaining about not having air conditioning. The judge went on to explain that AC was a luxury. I've been much more appreciative of my AC since that day."

"I reached a point in my life where I can budget for being comfortable in my own home, whether it is 110F or 10F outside. That's a nice luxury."

Air travel

Sitting in a chair above the Earth and being plopped down in another country for less than the price of a Taylor Swift concert ticket? Priceless.

"People bitch and complain about everything: the seats are too small, it costs too much, food sucks, the flight was delayed. But it's pretty amazing to pay a few hundred dollars and arrive on the other side of the country (or globe) the same day."

"100% And if you go to a random rural town you'll meet a ton of people who have never been on an airplane. I lived in the middle of nowhere in northern Michigan and when I told people I'd flown a few dozen times they looked at me like I was an alien."

"Yeah sometimes I feel like I am one of the only people left who is still amazed by the idea that you can get in an aluminum tube, fly through the air, and land in a place that a century ago would have taken days or weeks to get to."

Free time

The gift of time should never be undervalued.

"Time is the real answer. This question was asked a different way not long ago and someone wrote up a very well thought out reply about why time is the ultimate luxury. And I don't mean using that time for luxury leisure time either. Time itself is the luxury because it affords you opportunities that you otherwise would not have."

"This is my favorite luxury of them all! In my experience it requires money which is the only reason money is important to me. Money to be off work (and all the bills still get paid) but also money to enjoy that free time however I please. From a young adult I made free time my mission and I’ve been blessed to have a lot of it."

"Yes! The first time I watched Wrath of Khan, and Khan says to Kirk, 'Time is a luxury you don’t have, Admiral' my mind was blown. I had never thought of time as a luxury before, and that has always stuck with me.

I still hear Ricardo Montalban in my head when my alarm goes off in the morning and I have to get up, lol."

There are so many simple things we can consider luxuries and feel grateful for. All we have to do is imagine what life would be like without them.

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Heroes

Fog harvesting is real — and it's bringing clean drinking water to communities in need.

True

High in the Anti-Atlas mountains of southwestern Morocco, there are several isolated villages where the Berber people have lived for centuries.

The Anti-Atlas mountains of southwestern Morocco. Image via Dar Si Hmad.

The Berber people, also called the Imazighen, have lived in scattered settlements across Morocco and its surrounding countries for thousands of years. As the descendants of the pre-Arab inhabitants of North Africa, their history dates back to prehistoric times. They have preserved their own language and culture despite numerous attempts to colonize them throughout history. Today, about 14 million Berber people live in Morocco.

Over the past 30 years, life has become increasingly difficult for the Berbers living in the Anti-Atlas mountains because of desertification and abnormally intense droughts, including one in 1986 that dried out the region so much that it has never fully recovered.

A Berber woman pouring hot water into a tea pot. Image via iStock.

Before, while it had always been warm and dry there, they had sufficient rainwater and well water to survive and raise livestock. But these long dry spells forced women and children to spend an average of four hours a day on round trips to gather drinking water for their families and cattle. And during particularly dry summers, they had to hike even further.

When the water shortages got dire, water had be hauled in by tanker truck, which was time-consuming and expensive. They urgently needed a solution to their water problem, especially since climate change was likely to make the task of finding drinking water even harder.

Luckily, their unique climate offered them a potential solution.

Fog in the Anti-Atlas mountains of Morocco. Image by Ayman Abdelilah/Wikimedia Commons.

There is a lot of fog in this area of southwestern Morocco because of some interesting meteorological phenomena.

There is a large, stationary high-pressure system (called the Azores anticyclone) that circulates air off the coast of Morocco over a cold-water current from the Canary Islands. This causes air to pick up moisture and form clouds — specifically statocumulus clouds, which are low-lying and full of water. Wind then pushes these clouds from the coast toward the Anti-Atlas mountains, but since these mountains are high and colder than the coast, they form a natural barrier — trapping the clouds and forming fog against the mountainsides.

Fog in the Anti-Atlas mountains. Image via Dar Si Hmad.

This means that while there is very little rain on these mountains, there is a lot of thick fog, which, thanks to some new green technology, can be harnessed and turned directly into drinking water.

Dar Si Hmad, a women-led NGO in Morocco, designed and installed a fog-water harvesting system — the largest in the world to date — on the summit of one of these foggy mountains, Mount Boutmezguida.

The fog-harvesting system being installed on Mount Boutmezguida. Image via Dar Si Hmad.

The way fog-harvesting works is actually fairly simple: On the summit of Boutmezguida, high above the villages, finely meshed panels — or nets — were installed.

The mesh in the fog-harvesting system. Image via Dar Si Hmad.

When wind pushes fog through the specialized mesh, water droplets are trapped. They then condense and fall into a container that collects the water below the nets. This water flows downhill in pipes to reservoirs, where it can be stored until it is needed.

The construction team setting up pipes to capture the fog water. Image via Dar Si Hmad.

From those reservoirs, the water is piped directly to the villages and individual households. So far, this project in Morocco has provided running water to 92 households, or nearly 400 people, most of them women and children.

The best part? Fog water is pure, free from any contaminants and pollutants, so it can be used for drinking water without any treatment.

This makes fog-catching an incredibly affordable, efficient and environmentally friendly way to harvest drinking water, and it can be used in other places where there are few or no viable means to access water.

Image via Dar Si Hmad.

Dar Si Hmad’s project was awarded a United Nations Climate Change prize in 2016, and there are already plans to extend the fog-catching system to other villages and parts of Morocco.

“Where there’s fog, we can harness it for the community, store it when it’s needed and use it later, instead of looking for very expensive and fossil-based solutions like desalinizing water, or digging more bore holes looking for even deeper aquifers,” Dr. Jamila Bargach, director of Dar Si Hmad, told CNN.

Aissa Derhem, the president of Dar Si Hamed. Image by Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images.

The technique could be used in other parts of the world, as well. In fact, FogQuest, a Canadian nonprofit, has already set up fog-harvesting systems in South and Central America, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Where there is fog, this technology has the power to not only deliver clean water, but also to change people's lives — especially women and children — all over the world. And the technology will undoubtedly become more important in the future as droughts and climate change affect water supplies globally.

Family

This powder is cleaning drinking water all over the world and transforming lives

True

Imagine you grab a cup of water to drink, and it’s so murky that you can’t even see through it. Would you drink it?

For many people around the world, this isn’t a hypothetical question because they don’t have a choice.

All images via P&G Children's Safe Drinking Water.

Right now, 663 million people around the world don't have access to clean drinking water. Some live in rural areas where there is no centralized water system or water treatment plant, meaning that they rely on local river or lake water. Others live in areas still recovering from a natural disaster, such as a hurricane or flood, and the water is contaminated.

Faced with no other water source, they are forced to drink the water they have access to — even if it could lead to sickness or serious diseases, such as cholera or typhoid.

But what if there were an easy — and affordable — way to purify even the most contaminated water and make it clean enough to drink? Well, it turns out there is.

In 1999, Phil Souter, a chemist and an associate director of research and development at P&G, was working on a project to effectively recycle laundry water when he had an idea. He wanted to create a powder packet — like a detergent — that could scrub cloudy and dirty water of anything harmful and turn it into safe drinking water.

So he put together a proposal, got it approved, and went to work.

"What I was trying to do was miniaturize what takes place in water treatment plants," he explains, "and miniaturize that into a packet that a consumer could easily use, that wasn’t expensive, and that was a bit of a one-size-fits-all so that it could literally treat any source of drinking water."

Creating such a solution was no easy feat.

To be successful, the packet would need to be able to kill off any and all bacteria and small parasites found in all kinds of different water sources, from lakes and rivers to wells and flood waters, while also being able to remove heavy metals and other harmful chemicals.

And it would need to do this in an inexpensive, timely way (because who wants to sit around for hours waiting for a drink of water?). Of course, the new, clearer water would also need to taste good (not like a bunch of chemicals — yuck). Plus, all of the steps to do this would have to fit into a small sachet — no special equipment allowed. Oh, and it also would need to have a decent shelf life so that it could be distributed without expiring before it even got there.

"So really, there were a lot of technical challenges to solve," Souter says.

But after a little over two years of testing and development, Souter and his team created a powder that could do everything it needed to do.

It's called the P&G Purifier of Water sachet.

Just 4 grams of the powder can clean up to 10 liters (2.6 gallons) of dirty water in just 30 minutes. The purifying packets are about the size of a teabag, and they have a shelf life of three years, meaning that it is easy to stockpile them in places that need them.

The best part? The water purification process could not be simpler: All you need is the packet, a bucket of water, a stick, and a cloth.

Here's how it works:

First, you stir the water and powder for five minutes so that harmful things — such as heavy metals, parasites, and dirt — are pulled out from the water and they coagulate together to form small insoluble particles. The water immediately starts to look clearer.

Then you let the water settle for five minutes. This is when all those small particles clump together — in a process called flocculation — to form bigger, heavier particles that fall to the bottom of the water container.

Once all the clumps have settled, you can strain the water with a piece of cloth or fabric as you pour it into a new, fresh container.

Then you let the water sit for 20 minutes while the water disinfects and kills any remaining bacteria and viruses. After that, the clean water is drinkable (and it can be stored for later).

So far, the water purification packets have been incredibly helpful in addressing water crises and shortages all over the world.

The packets remove more than 99.9% of common waterborne bacteria, viruses, and protozoa (microbial organisms) from water, and they have helped reduce the incidence of diarrheal disease by up to 90%.

"For those rural communities that don’t have access to a sustained water solution — like a pipe system — these packets are an excellent solution that can be a bridge to those more permanent options for communities," says Allison Tummon-Kamphuis, manager of P&G’s Children’s Safe Drinking Water Program. They can also make a big difference after a natural disaster.

Since the packets were created, P&G has worked with 150 different partners around the world — including CARE, ChildFund, PSI, Save the Children, and World Vision — to provide 11 billion liters of clean water to those in need.

And the company is continuing to scale up work to help distribute the packets to even more places that need them. In fact, the packets were named one of the world’s most impactful innovations in 2012.

The packets are having a particularly important role in improving the health of children around the world. "I meet so many little girls around the world — I have two daughters myself," Tummon-Kamphuis says, "and to meet young girls who have all sorts of dreams and seeing them have some of the barriers removed that would have gotten in the way of them achieving them is very memorable to me. And it’s not just young girls. It’s boys as well."

While Souter has moved on to other research and development projects at P&G, he still remains proud of the work that he did on bringing these packets into the world.

"My work on this project has been a source of both personal pride and humble understanding," he said in 2012, "as I've come to realize that every once in a while, life puts us in a position — opens to us a door — to make a difference."

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