Welcome to the blog for Colgate University's interdisciplinary course on food. This is the place to keep up with what students in the course are experiencing in their work at Common Thread Community Farm and through their everyday encounters with food.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

The Drinkable Book

Every year 3.4 million people die unknowingly from water related disease.  WATERisLIFE is a social advocacy group for clean water has partnered with engineers at Carnegie Melon and UVA in order to develop a solution to combat this catastrophic issue.

The Drinkable Book is a book that is printed on advanced printer paper that effectively acts like a coffee filter in order to kill water borne diseases.  The technology behind the Drinkable Book was created by Dr. Theresa Dankovich of Carnegie Melon.  Dankovich is passionate about her technology as it is the "first ever manual that provides safe water, sanitation and hygiene education and serves as a tool to kill deadly waterborne diseases by providing the reader with an opportunity to create clean, drinkable water from each page."  The paper reduces more than 99.9% in bacteria account after the water has been filtered through the paper.  The key to the technology is the silver nano-particles, which can kill bacteria associated with typhoid and cholera.      

As seen above the book works in three very simple steps allowing for ease of use across language barriers.  Additionally, the content on each page is printed in food grade ink and educates the consumers about safe water habits, which we take for granted.  The filter paper is expected to revolutionize water purification, and remarkably costs only pennies to produce.  The book is also extremely sustainable as each page could be used for thirty days of filtering.  The book can provide readers with drinkable water for up to four years!    

The WATERisLIFE plans to work on a partnership with pAge Drinking Paper on the book's research, and production, and to begin distribution of the book in 2016.

http://waterislife.com/donate



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