Recently in Design for Water Category

We recently got in contact with industrial designer Zitta Schnitt from Vienna, Austria about her concept to turn PET plastic bottles into handy purses. Her concept uses the bottoms of any normal plastic beverage bottle into carrying cases using nylon thread and a zipper.

Instead of making these purses for sale, Zitta has made her concept an "Open Source Design" project. This means she has opened the concept to everyone to manufacture and has provided instructions for you to produce them on your own.

While I have not made one myself, I am going to try. I am up for the challenge. They seem like a great gift for the right person and it is always more rewarding to make something yourself instead of buying.

You too can make a PET purse by downloading the instructions in a PDF here. Go to the bottom of the page and click on "Construction Tutorial" on the bottom left of the page.

You all know where to find plastic bottles. They are everywhere. Check out Zitta's design portfolio here.

As we have discussed before, almost a billion people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water. Scientists and activists are constantly looking for new ways to solve this problem.

Researchers at South Africa's Stellenbosch University have developed a water filter that cost about half a cent per use. The filter, which essentially looks like a teabag (and is made from actual teabag material), uses activated carbon and anti-bacterial nano-fibers to filter most water for safe drinking.The filter basically sits in the top of a water bottle and as you drink, it filters out contaminants (see video below).

 Cost has been a big issue for water filters in the past. The Lifesaver, designed by nano technology specialist, Michael Pritchard was very effective but cost upwards of $100 USD per bottle. This "teabag" filter unfortunately, can only be used for 1 liter of water and then must be thrown away. However, at half a cent, it is still a bargain and might work for people making less than 1 dollar a day.

The Dean of the Faculty of Science at Stellenbosch University explains how it works in the video below.
 
  
(via io9.com)

The Bamboo Original, a Bamboo and glass reusable water bottle to be made available in stores soon, may be one of the most sustainable bottles we have seen in a long time.

While glass bottles are healthy and safe in that they do not have even a chance of leaking chemicals, and eco-friendly in that they are non-toxic and recyclable, they are fragile and difficult to use when on-the-go.

This new bamboo bottle from the Bamboo Bottle Company, a new water bottle start-up, has taken the glass bottle and covered it with the world's most sustainable wood, Bamboo. This combination make it an incredibly natural and non-toxic offering.

We have never tried these bottled and they are not available from the website yet. We are excited to see how they turn out. .

The bottle holds 17 Oz. of water and will be on sale for $25

Go to the Bamboo Bottle Company Website to sign up for an email alert for to be the first to know when they go on sale.

A Canadian company, Planet People has developed a line of non-toxic cleaning products that, to reduce packaging and carbon footprint from shipping, do not come with water.

The IQClean line of cleaning products comes with a bottle and a cartridge of plant based cleaning fluid. Users of the product simply fill the IQClean bottles with tap water and the cleaning liquid from the cartridge is added in. When the cartridge is empty, instead of buying a new bottle from the company, customers just by a new cartridge, saving on plastic production and shipping.

The company claims that through savings on fuel from shipping and petroleum products used in the manufacturing of plastic, they have reduced the carbon footprint of cleaning products by 70% compared to conventional cleaning products.

Other suppliers and manufacturers have realized that not shipping water in a wide variety of household products allows significant reductions in packaging and shipping costs as well as the products overall carbon footprint.

Many companies are realizing that the premise of shipping water does not make sense economically or environmentally. Wal-mart, Proctor & Gamble and Unilever have all had programs to concentrate products so that consumers can add water from a local source at the time of use,.

This trend provides more evidence that using local and sustainable water for all your needs, is just plain smart.

3M announced a new product today that is meant to be an alternative to bottled water, called the 'Filtrete Water Station'.

The device basically takes your basic Brita water filter and combines it with BPA free reusable water bottles, skipping the step of pouring water from a filter jug to a reusable bottle.

When you pour water into the top of the filter, it directly fills 4 water bottles that can be detached and taken with you on-the-go.

3M claims that the filter works faster than your average filtering home water jug, processing 2 and a half times more water. One filter will take care of 100 gallons of water before it needs to be replaced.

1 Filtrete Docking water bottle docking station and lid plus 1 Filtrete Fast Flow Filter, 4 - 16.9 oz (500mL) Filtrete Water Bottles has a suggested retail price of $42.99. Replacement  Filters  will retail for $12.99, Filtrete Water Bottles (2 - 16.9 oz (500mL) Water Bottles) will be available for $15.99.

The company claims that by using the Filtrete for your water needs has the potential to keep 3,000 water bottles out of landfills. 

With the World Cup came lots of talk and thoughts, maybe too much, about the World's favorite sport, soccer. Now that the tournament is over, we can think about more important things, like soccer fields that double as water catchment systems.

Designers from the charitable design organization Atopia Research, have come up with a soccer field that acts as a community center and water catchment and storage system specifically designed for a typical African village.

The project, called PITCH: AFRICA ('Pitch', to the world outside the US means 'soccer field' FYI), is based on the idea that most of Africa gets plenty of rainfall but only at specific times of the year. Therefore, a good rainwater catchment system has the potential to create a consistent water supply all year long.

If you match a rainwater catchment with a very popular community activity, you get a centralized and easy to access water source that can be used to water plants, cook and drink. The soccer field basically acts as a large water catchment surface where water collects and is drained through a semi-permeable surface into a storage tank and then filtered. In theory, this system is able to provide 1000 people with water, year-round.

The idea is explained by the designers in this video below, courtesy of Fast Company:

There is no shortage of green marketing with body care products. When shopping for them, you will find hundreds of brands that will tell you they have the product with the most natural, organic and environmentally sound ingredients.

But one German company is taking the green messaging a step further. Their brand doesn't boast about how they are saving the planet, but rather the branding itself tells you what you should be doing to save the planet.

'Stop The Water While Using Me' shampoo, shower gel and toothpaste aims to remind you to conserve water every time you are in the shower or brushing your teeth.

This is kind of like having a PSA billboard in the washroom with you. I must admit it would make me think twice about a long shower or leaving the water running while I lather up. As we have mentioned before, the little things add up to save a lot of water.

Bottom line: 'Stop The Water While Using Me' spreads a good message and is just brilliant marketing. By the way, the products themselves are actually eco-friendly, made with biodegradable containers and organic ingredients.

The shampoo, shower gel, and toothpaste are available for 13, 12 and 8 Euros respectively. 

Quirky.com is a social product development site where people submit product ideas and then others can contribute to the design on the products path to production. They have produced everything from a compact luggage scale, to a rainwater collector for plastic bottles.

Using its special crowd sourced design process, Quirky has recently finished up a new kind of reusable water bottle. It is called the HydraDuo which features two removable 8 oz. containers in one bottle. This way, if you can't decide what beverage to fill your bottle with or water is simply not enough, you have choices.

The top of the bottle is also designed to allow you to easily drink one liquid without it mixing with the other. That way you can have water and iced coffee or your favorite spirit and a chaser with no mixing.

Is this one of those ideas that seems useful in theory but no one really needs? The great thing about Quirky is that if a product does not reach its pre-order threshold, it is never produced. The HydraDuo, at the moment, has sold 116 of the required 980 to go into production.

If you think this is a great idea, pre-order here. They go for $17.50 each.

For those of us who like fancy things (you know who you are), there is a reusable water bottle for you.

The Tkaro water canteen is for those of us who need something more than the common stainless steel bottle. It features a beautiful, wide mouth glass body with a bottom similar to a wine bottle (with the little glass bubble) to keep it from breaking easily.

 It also has a stainless steel cap to protect the top and I presume, to keep your water safe. Custom engraving is available on the steel cap to give as a gift for a birthday or maybe even a eco friendly anniversary present.

The bottles will run you $32.95 or $37.95 engraved. Boxes of 6 are available for $187.80 or $216.30 engraved. Order them here.

Horticulturalists at Penn State have developed a waste water treatment system using plants called a 'biofilter'.

The system is made up of 7 foot long upright plastic tubes filled with dirt, recycled materials such as porous rocks, cow manure and tire crumbs that encourage the growth of microbes. A variety of plants also grow out of the mixture. The tubes are placed in a foot of potting soil with crushed limestone.

When waste water, such as drainage from a washing machine, travels through the pipes and into the soil it purifies the water. The system acts as a mini wetland. The natural bacteria and plants eat the toxins in the water as food and what is left is pure water.

"We have shown that with this system we can take waste water from a washing machine and remove more than 90 percent of the pollutants within three days," said Robert D. Cameron, a doctoral candidate at Penn State. "The treated water had very low levels of suspended solids and no detectable levels of e.coli."

The biggest advantage to this biofilter system compared to systems before it, is size. One of these units is small enough to place anywhere, maybe even in homes. This way it could work as a nice indoor garden with reeds and papyrus and a greywater filter too. You can't get much more green than that.

Check out the filter in the video below: