[HN Gopher] Flocculant/Disinfectant Powder
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Flocculant/Disinfectant Powder
Author : techolic
Score : 178 points
Date : 2021-05-01 03:41 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cdc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cdc.gov)
| selimnairb wrote:
| This is great, but what happens to the sachets? Are the
| biodegradable? When I was in India a few years ago I was struck
| by all the newly introduced non biodegradable packing strewn
| about EVERYWHERE. The old unfired clay cups used by road-side tea
| vendors were great, but they were rapidly being replaced by
| little white plastic cups. Plastic is a scourge on the land and
| water resources.
| FredPret wrote:
| I wonder how long it'll take for a plastic-eating microorganism
| to evolve.
|
| Apparently trees evolved hundreds of millions of years before
| the bacteria that can make wood rot arrived, so you probably
| had piles of dead trees everywhere for such a long time.
| PicassoCTs wrote:
| The bacteria was a fungi, and yes trees piled up for a long
| time. We use them today - as coal deposits.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| Paenarthrobacter ureafaciens KI72 also know as Nylon eating
| bacteria can eat Nylon. I am not a biologist so I know little
| more about it than what I read in [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nylon-eating_bacteria
| asah wrote:
| how did new trees grow when the ground was covered in piles
| of dead trees?
| Pfhreak wrote:
| Trees are capable of growing in and on other trees. Also,
| most of the tree comes from air, not the ground.
| FredPret wrote:
| Do you happen to know what percentage of trees are from
| CO2 and what from the soil? I've always wondered how much
| carbon is captured in, say, a book, or a dresser
| neurostimulant wrote:
| Dry wood is about 50% carbon, 41% oxygen, 6% hydrogen,
| and 3% trace minerals, so it's probably safe to say that
| over 50% of it comes from CO2, and the rest from water
| and soil.
| mahogany wrote:
| Is there not carbon in the soil?
|
| Edit: I misread what you said. I think you are claiming
| that because there is so much carbon and oxygen, probably
| more than half comes from CO2. But there is both carbon
| and oxygen (well really, air) in soil. Although
| apparently the concentration of CO2 in the soil's air is
| much higher than it is in the normal atmosphere, so it's
| possible your statement is correct. (Plus looking at dry
| wood composition is a bit odd when it's generally less
| than 15% moisture content - that leaves out a lot of
| water that's present in a living tree.)
| tonyarkles wrote:
| I don't know the exact number, but came across a wild
| thought experiment a while ago that drove it home. Look
| at a big tree. There's 3 things that could have gone into
| making it: water, air, and earth. If you look at the
| ground around it, there's no hole where the tree grew.
| Sure, there's the root system, but there's nowhere near
| enough dirt missing to have made both the root system and
| the 50' above-ground portion of the tree. That only
| leaves air and water.
| FredPret wrote:
| That's a good one. Though it's possible the soil is less
| dense around the roots due to mineral absorption.
|
| But I suppose the majority of the mass must come from
| water and carbon in the air.
| FredPret wrote:
| I'm no ancient tree expert, but I imagine they'd eventually
| be buried under layers of new soil, washed away, or be
| swept along with geological movements
| gumby wrote:
| What do you think "new soil" is made of? The original
| trees evolved in a soil with different composition from
| the soil we have today (which today includes the
| consequences of decomposition of... trees).
|
| I mean sure some of that could happen due to a bit of
| wind, so you're not at all wrong. But the volume of thick
| loamy topsoil isn't mostly tiny rock grains (sand) but a
| living amalgam of bacteria, fungi, plant matter, plantae,
| animal detritus (faeces but also cast off skin or
| carapaces...).
|
| Part of the problem with modern farming is that parts of
| the economic process treat the soil as an inert matrix
| (just as road bike manufacturers justifiably (in their
| case) don't spend time thinking of the road as part of
| the bike system).
| gumby wrote:
| I agree with your observation of India but note that
| biodegradable packaging has to be looked after or else it
| degrades before you're ready. Think of flour packaged in paper:
| it is in fact sold that way in some places but it leaks and if
| it gets wet the flour is ruined.
|
| This is a product designed for somewhat demanding conditions.
|
| If anything your good argument really asks why a more
| biodegradable approach is not used in places that could afford
| it (I don't mean economically but in "having the affordances
| for"). Western countries can manage to reliably package and use
| flour in biodegradable paper packages, why not other products?
| And the plastic bags that are a scourge upon the landscape not
| just of India are formthe most part not really needed.
| anamexis wrote:
| I would argue that this is a situation where the (presumed)
| greater expense of a biodegradable sachet would not be worth
| it. When it comes to providing safe drinking water, I would
| want the cost to be as low as possible.
| pengaru wrote:
| How long before we see a headline about Haitian wildlife choking
| to death on non-biodegradable P&G flocculant wrappers littering
| the landscape?
|
| The P&G branded plastic cup was a nice touch too.
| publicola1990 wrote:
| How does it work if water has dissolved salts?
| Blahah wrote:
| It's not going to be much use in distilled water, so it pretty
| much exclusively works in water with dissolved salts.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Are you saying it will turn saltwater into freshwater (it
| won't), or it will purify saltwater, but it will still be
| saltwater?
|
| I'm not sure which the OP was asking about.
| stevespang wrote:
| The powdered ferric sulfate in the formula is a health risk for
| all men and non menstruating women as the soluble iron is not
| removed during the process. This level of iron will produce
| toxicity in part through free radical promotion.This is
| equivalent to poisoning people.
| fnord77 wrote:
| the CDC is advertising for P&G?
| jawns wrote:
| If P&G is really not making a penny off this, I'm fine with a
| little CDC plug.
| [deleted]
| napier wrote:
| Great idea. What are the sachets made of though? Lined with
| plastic and destined to be burned on cooking fires and ditches
| along with all the other single use, single serving P&G product
| plastic packaging formats targeted at the developing world I'd
| wager.
| hedora wrote:
| A better question is how much plastic waste is the end user
| producing, and what percentage of that is the sachet.
|
| Amdahl's law, and what not.
| napier wrote:
| In developing country contexts the figures are easier to
| calculate than people think, due to the fact that functioning
| recycling and waste management systems are rare. Plastic
| waste improperly disposed of tallies almost 1:1 with
| production, and most production is carried out directly or on
| a contract basis by auditable multinational corporations.
|
| Thanks for educating me about Amdahl's law. Some interesting
| reading to do around that.
| londons_explore wrote:
| 3.5 cents per sachet seems very expensive in bulk. A sachet
| probably only contains a gram or so, meaning these ingredients
| are being sold at $35/kilo.
|
| $3/kilo sounds far more reasonable, and it should be sold in 1kg
| containers and users instructed to use a teaspoon per large
| bucket.
| kijin wrote:
| There seem to be two main use cases for this stuff.
|
| One is everyday disinfection of drinking water. For that
| purpose a large container might be more economical, provided
| that it can be kept reasonably watertight through three years
| of daily use. (1 gram per day per family means a 1kg container
| will last 2-3 years.)
|
| The other is emergency use in disaster zones for a limited
| amount of time. For this purpose a bunch of sealed sachets is
| much easier to transport and distribute despite the high unit
| cost.
| leetrout wrote:
| At least for sodium hypochlorite in solution it loses its
| disinfection properties quickly as I understand it.
|
| I wonder if it would have to stay in the packets or smaller
| containers to maintain its efficacy?
| londons_explore wrote:
| Anything sealed will work. A glass jam jar is 8 cents and
| can hold 1 kg.
| leetrout wrote:
| Sunlight destroys chlorine -- is it only when it's in
| water or would it affect the powder too?
| vorpalhex wrote:
| $0.035 to clean 10 liters of water is very good. $35/kilo
| doesn't seem unreasonable given that chlorine itself is $16-$22
| a kilo through consumer stores.
|
| Given that these are pretty gnarly chemicals in bulk, I don't
| think you want users handling them. Training users on PPE and
| procedure and supplying the PPE is a whole mess.
|
| I have no idea where you got $3 from.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Don't really need any special ppe for hypo and ferric.
| They're common industrial water treatment chemicals, meaning
| they're handled daily by low skilled workers without much
| news of accidents. There aren't even any special containment
| requirements for small quantities <500 gallons. Crystalized
| these chemicals are very stable and represent low risk to
| operators.
|
| As a yard stick of cost: surface water treatment costs
| somewhere in the neighborhood of $1/1,000 gallons in the
| developed world.
| raverbashing wrote:
| "By 1kg bucket" sounds good but it is probably very unstable
| outside of the sachet (hygroscopic, could dissociate, could
| clump up, etc)
|
| (probably more than 1g per sachet, 4g as it says in the
| picture)
| lenitabinol wrote:
| This is amazing. As someone who has lived in conditions where
| safe water isn't freely available, this costing 3.5 cents and
| being manufactured in an emerging market is life changing.
| S_A_P wrote:
| Saw this stuff on Mark Robers channel. Pretty amazing stuff. Been
| thinking of finding some for an emergency kit.
| JonathonW wrote:
| If you're in the US or Canada, you probably want something else
| for water purification in your emergency kit (iodine or a good
| filter or the equipment to boil water)-- bleach (including the
| calcium hypochlorite in this stuff) won't adequately kill
| Giardia cysts or Cryptosporidium.
| wtallis wrote:
| When my scout troop is teaching the Emergency Preparedness
| merit badge, we often do an exercise on bulk treatment of
| water beyond what is practical to filter with the portable
| filters we take on backpacking trips. We use alum as a
| flocculant, then sand to filter, then battery-powered UV
| sterilization (while noting that leaving clear water out in
| full sun for a few hours will accomplish the same dose as
| stirring a UV lamp through a bucket for a minute or two).
| Alum isn't exactly a common household item these days and the
| UV lamp certainly isn't, but it does make for a cheap and
| compact kit that can treat a lot of water with relatively
| little time and effort.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > Alum isn't exactly a common household item these days
|
| You can often find it in the spice section. People use it
| to make pickles.
|
| McCormick/Schilling sells it, among other major brands.
|
| Walmart sells "Hoosier Hill Farm" brand for about
| $15/pound.
| wtallis wrote:
| My point was more that it isn't something people are
| likely to already have on hand at home. It's certainly
| readily available and extremely cheap for this purpose,
| but you need to actually buy some before a disaster hits.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Depends on the family!
|
| Hoarding the clearance pickling supplies after the season
| is over is a long tradition in my family. :)
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Chlorine will kill giardia. You just have to wait somewhat
| longer.
|
| Giardia is definitely present in Pakistan, where this is
| being manufactured.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Unfortunately it seem to not to work in Chinese giardias.
|
| Giardiosis happen rather routinely even in places like
| Shanghai. Personal experience.
| Laforet wrote:
| The quality of tap water in Shanghai is pretty bad even
| by Chinese standards - there is a reason why boiling
| water is the norm.
| quercusa wrote:
| I picked up a case of Crypto during a day trip to Milwaukee
| for a lunch meeting back in the 90s (they had a water
| treatment issue).
|
| 0/10, would not recommend.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| You could also ask your local water provider what their
| emergency plan is. Some parts of their emergency plan are
| confidential, but they are required by law to have a plan. The
| larger operators already have their Risk and Resiliency plans
| in effect, and smaller operators have a July deadline for their
| R&R plans.
|
| It's been my experience that water operators take a lot of
| pride in their work and are happy to educate the public about
| what it is they do.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| I'd rather prepare myself than rely on my provider's
| emergency plan. I can be sure if my house survives the
| disaster and I have my own purifier (whether this product or
| something else), then I'll be able to have drinking water.
| But even if my provider has a great plan, disaster plans
| aren't truly tested until the disaster strikes, so that plan
| may not be sufficient.
|
| I have both stored fresh water as well as a filter in case of
| emergency, I'm not counting on my local water authority being
| able to pump water uphill to where I live for long during a
| disaster.
| redisman wrote:
| How is it better than existing water purification tabs or a
| filter like lifestraw?
| DanBC wrote:
| A lifestraw is better at removing bacteria, viruses, and
| protozoa. See page 7 here. https://www.who.int/water_sanitati
| on_health/publications/hwt...
|
| I don't know the cost of lifestraws to NGOs, but I guess
| they're more expensive. And you need one lifestraw per
| person, where these sachets can do bulk buckets of water.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Well, for one you get 10 l of water at a time. For another,
| most water purification tablets taste horrible, and don't do
| anything about sediment.
| tdeck wrote:
| Water purification tablets are either chlorine (most common)
| or iodine based. So essentially this is the equivalent of a
| chlorine based tablet plus some flocculent to cause sediment
| to settle out of the water.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| The 'zon has it, but at an outrageous markup over the 3.5 cents
| per packet mentioned in the article.
| TylerE wrote:
| 3.5 cents to PRODUCE.
|
| Not to ship halfway around the world, warehouse, pick,
| package and ship.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Each sachet of P&G(tm) is provided to global emergency
| relief organizations or non-governmental organizations at a
| cost of 3.5 US cents, not including shipping from Pakistan
| by ocean container. Transport, distribution, education, and
| community motivation can add significantly to program
| costs. Sachets are generally sold at product cost recovery
| for 10 US cents each, for a cost of 1 US cent per liter
| treated.
|
| 10 cents for 10 liters, or a penny a liter. still a lot
| more than 3.5 cents, but not crazy.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| Yes. 10 cents is not two dollars, which some Amazon
| sellers are charging.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Especially when people pay $2 for a half liter of Poland
| Spring!
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| So you're arguing that it costs two bucks to ship it?
|
| Yeah, no.
|
| As the other poster noted, the article explicitly says that
| the retail price, _including shipping_ , is about 10 cents.
| creddit wrote:
| The 'zon????
| [deleted]
| thomasqm wrote:
| amazon! probably
| avmich wrote:
| > powdered ferric sulfate (a flocculant) and calcium
| hypochlorite
|
| Are you saying those two components are too expensive on
| Amazon?..
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| You could certainly brew your own.
|
| I was referring to the fact that Amazon sellers are
| charging 50 cents to two dollars (!) for a packet that is
| sold by the manufacturer for 3.5 cents.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Puts it in line with all the other overpriced outdoors
| gear.
| MooMooMilkParty wrote:
| My guess is if you're posting here you're not necessarily the
| target market for this product. You might be better with just a
| Sawyer squeeze or other off the shelf filter. If you're looking
| for clarifying turbid water you could get a bottle of alum from
| the grocery store and use that as a flocculant. Or if you
| wanted heavier duty there's "Water Wizard for River Runners"
| which is made of stuff which is often used for wastewater
| treatment.
| EZ-Cheeze wrote:
| Detailed video about this: https://youtu.be/6qZWMNW7GmE
| techolic wrote:
| He claims P&G is selling it for a loss which I found to be less
| believable, would love to see if there're more information on
| that.
| sfifs wrote:
| We definitely don't make any profit from this and while I'm
| not familiar with the financials, we do donate these products
| as part of our CSR and for disaster relief operations.
|
| This is the official website. https://csdw.org/
| hedora wrote:
| I'd be curious to know what percentage of the cost is the
| packaging.
|
| Also, a link to lab results would be great. The article
| (but not the official website) says it removes some heavy
| metals. I wonder in what concentration, and which metals.
|
| Also, how does this compare in cost to a softener + carbon
| + uv/chlorine?
|
| Anyway, this looks like a fantastic technology. Thanks!
| throwawaysea wrote:
| What's the difference between this and water purifiers for
| camping, such as https://www.potableaqua.com/products/pa-with-pa-
| drinking-wat...
| Johnny555 wrote:
| Potable Aqua will not remove sediment from the water, if you
| use it to purify muddy water, it will still be muddy but
| without bacterial/viral contaminants. So you'll still be
| drinking whatever contaminants (heavy metals, etc) that are
| making the water muddy. So you'd still want to filter dirty
| water before drinking (and to remove cryptosporidium cysts
| which are not killed by Potable Aqua)
|
| The flocculant agent in this product binds with the sediment,
| making it easier to filter out with a simple cotton filter.
| jrj8ffkjr wrote:
| This is 1 cent per liter. Your link is 50 cents per liter.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| That's probably not a fair comparison, there's only 20mg of
| the active ingredient (Tetraglycine Hydroperiodide) per
| purifying tablet and has expensive packaging and marketing
| costs.
|
| Admittedly, I don't know how much that ingredient costs in
| bulk, but I bet if an agency wanted to produce it in bulk for
| widespread water purification, it'd cost a lot less than 50
| cents/L
| peter_retief wrote:
| I worked as an extraction metallurgist in semi desert mines and
| we used an aluminium based flocculant (alum) to clarify water in
| dams with rotating stirrers. Quite an old concept and not
| expensive.
| jfk13 wrote:
| Yes - many years ago when I lived and worked in South Asia, it
| was common knowledge that swishing a lump of alum around in
| your bucket of dirty water would help to settle the sediment.
|
| Obviously it doesn't provide total purity, but it was a lot
| better than doing nothing.
|
| Apparently even the ancient Egyptians knew about this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_alum#In_antiquity
| geomark wrote:
| Here in Thailand they sell those chunks of alum at village
| shops. Called saarsm in Thai. Villagers follow the same
| routine, swish it around in a bucket of dirty water to settle
| it out. Photo on the page at this link:
| https://pantip.com/topic/38053321
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Interestingly the Holy See had a monopoly on alum in the middle
| ages.
| sthnblllII wrote:
| -Multiple steps are necessary--requires training or demonstration
| -Requires a lot of equipment (2 buckets, cloth, and a stirrer)
|
| I think this gets at the heart of the issue. If stiring in a
| powder and straining your water to prevent disease and parasites
| is too complicated to understand or too time consuming to do
| consistently, imaging how difficult it will be for these people
| to build water treatment plants and ultimately build an
| industrialized economy. Which is why they haven't done so while
| other nations did it without any assistance centuries ago. There
| simply is no easy solution to poverty in the third world, and
| obsessing over it will get you nowhere.
| ekianjo wrote:
| As hinted by the article this is not news. PG has been doing that
| for almost 2 decades by now.
| adflux wrote:
| Pg?
| boffinism wrote:
| Postgres. It's amazingly versatile.
| vincnetas wrote:
| Made my day :D
| tragomaskhalos wrote:
| CREATE EXTENSION safe_drinking_water; -- :-)
| anoncake wrote:
| DROP TABLE germs;
| vincnetas wrote:
| Literally in the first sentence of the article (A P&G(tm)
| sachet (Proctor & Gamble)). Company name.
| oasisbob wrote:
| Interesting that P&G is also standing in as the branding
| for the product, as well.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Procter not Proctor. Common spelling mistake :)
| natmaka wrote:
| From Ancient Greek "proktos" (phonetically), meaning
| "anus".
|
| "Proctologists and gamblers" form a water-disinfectant
| powder. What a weird world we live in!
| refurb wrote:
| An the technology is really old school. Flocculant has been
| used forever to remove fine particles and bleach to disinfect.
| peteretep wrote:
| I have recently acquired a small swimming pool, and my wife
| has taught me the expression to "flocc and shock" for
| removing debris. This appears to be the etymology
| op00to wrote:
| The difference isn't that it's using fancy technology, it's
| that the product is standardized and fully proven via real
| world clinical trials.
| gumby wrote:
| "Flocculant" isn't a product name, it's a description of the
| function of an agent (like a "detergent" that makes a liquid
| less turgid). A flocculant will clump the fine particles
| together so the clumps will be large enough to be strained
| out.
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(page generated 2021-05-01 23:02 UTC)