Team:Valencia/Society

From 2011.igem.org

Our project in society

Sadly, water is a resource. In spite of all human development, water is still a matter that drives fights and struggles. Potable water is not as common as we could think. Even though progress in developed countries allows us to live in a society of comfort, truth is that infected water is one of the problems that World Health Organization spots as crucial for the well-being of human life.

What if disinfected water was available for most of humans? What if we could device a cheap system that allowed people in need to have safe, drinkable water? As the African saying goes, “beggared water does not quench the thirst”, that is, the human right to water is indispensable for living.

Water must be treated as a cultural and social good, not fundamentally as an economic good. That would solve much social unrest. Besides, the way that the right to water availability is exercised must be sustainable, so this right can be exercised by future generations as well as by current ones.

Regarding its quality for human consumption, water must be healthy (salubrious) and should not pose a health risk. The importance of water being drinkable lies in the great number of diseases it may otherwise cause, with the associated mortality rates. The following chart reflects the most common diseases due to the ingestion of untreated or contaminated water.

Worldwide around a billion people have no access to improved water sources and 2.5 billion have no access to basic sanitation facilities. This leads to diahrroeical diseases being the second largest cause of death among children younger than five, causing the death of 1.5 million children every year. Cholera takes a prominent place, being responsible for about 100 – 120 thousand deaths a year. To avoid this kind of diseases there are numerous sanitation and water treatment projects being developed by different government and non-governmental organizations. However, some studies show the effectiveness of these projects to be sub-optimal, as quite often the supply systems implanted in given areas lack the necessary means for an adequate treatment and purification, which means the supply in these areas will still be harmful. On the other hand, many of those projects are initially carried out, but after a time most of them stop working partially or completely, a problem which can easily be seen in some studies (Taylor, 2009). One of the preferred solutions being put into practice is mainly based in education and formation about how to maintain water supply and purification systems. It must also be taken into account the vital importance of creating a back-up after the construction, as well as having maintenance and spare parts services for the systems built in order to be able to offer a sustainability which can produce a real improvement to the living conditions of millions of people.

Our project has been designed as to be wireless (it does not need supply systems), cheap and ready to be made with a handful materials. The most expensive (and ethically arousing) part is the acquisition of the bacteriocin producing strains. For that, we ave made efforts to try to cope with doubts, problems and issues on that matter.

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