Gift of clean water - in a 15-cent sachet
Gift of clean water - in a 15-cent sachet
Pur has found its way to 40 countries, making 700 million litres drinkable
By Arti Mulchand
Pur powder is added to contaminated water and stirred for five minutes. A 4gm sachet should be used for 10 litres of water. -- ST PHOTO: ALAN LIM
View more photos
IN SOME Third World countries where clean water is not a given, life now comes in a packet the size of a tea-bag.
Each sachet - at just 10 US cents (15 Singapore cents) - can disinfect 10 litres of dirty water in 30 minutes, which means a lot fewer cases of diarrhoea and disease.
To date, 70 million packets of Pur water-purifying powder, a product of Procter & Gamble, have been donated or sold to 40 countries or the non-government agencies operating there.
So 700 million litres of water have been made drinkable in places like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malawi, Haiti and Pakistan, under the company's Children's Safe Drinking Water programme.
Programme director Gregory Allgood, an industrial toxicologist, explained that Pur works like a dirt magnet. The powder combines a 'flocculant', which separates particles and organisms from water, and a disinfectant that kills bacteria and viruses.
Tests by the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have found that water treated by Pur cuts the number of diarrhoea cases by up to half, said the Ohio-based Dr Allgood, who was in Singapore this week for talks with World Vision on a tie-up to work together in the region.
The 'Pur-fect' transformation
In just 30 minutes, dirty, murky water is turned crystal clear and drinkable with the help of Pur water-purifying powder.
... more
Pur, which had already won the coveted Stockholm Industry Water Award two years ago, garnered another prize this week: It beat more than 7,000 other project ideas to win US$2 million in the American Express' The Members Project contest.
Unicef, the United Nations' body for children's welfare, will decide how the money is spent to bring the benefits to even more children.
Pur has come a long way. Launched less than four years ago, it was to have been a commercial product that people could buy, like shampoo.
The company sank US$20 million from 2000 into research and development, and into building infrastructure to distribute Pur in four test markets - the Philippines, Pakistan, Guatemala and Morocco.
But only three million packets were sold. It just was not reaching the people who most needed it, and not enough infrastructure was there to bring it to them.
Dr Allgood said that when the company tried building that infrastructure, it dug itself into a deep financial hole.
But because he did not want the project to die, he suggested that the company continue making Pur, but on a not-for-profit basis.
It was the first time Procter & Gamble had done something like this in its 169-year history.
But there was good reason to do it: About 4,000 children were dying each day because they had no access to safe drinking water, he said.
Dr Allgood got the go-ahead to take the not-for -profit track just a month before the Dec 26 tsunami in 2004 - and 13 million sachets ended up in stricken areas, providing life-sustaining water.
Since then, Pur has helped prevent some 29 million days of diarrhoea and saved 3,850 lives in places where people have no choice but to use filthy water from rivers, ponds and streams.
Dr Allgood said: 'It would be fair to say that the project has been a humanitarian success, even if it was a commercial failure. But while you can do well as a company, you can also do good.''
He has often swallowed more than he has been prepared to, in the name of showing the power of Pur.
Once, in Malawi, a dead dog was lying on the bank of a stream where water for a demonstration was being collected.
He still drank it.
But what he sees on the road convinces him that this is work that needs to be done.
In a Kenyan village recently, the people were drinking 'liquid mud' - water collected from the same streams that cattle were defecating in. The need for clean water was so desperate that the water purified for a woman as part of a demonstration of Pur was promptly stolen.
He said: 'The woman got down on her hands and knees and begged for more sachets so her family could have clean water. It was pretty life-changing. I knew then that I wanted to dedicate my career to providing these people with help.'
He added that it was great to have saved lives, but children were still dying every day, 'so we have a lot of work to do to scale this up''.
Pur has found its way to 40 countries, making 700 million litres drinkable
By Arti Mulchand
Pur powder is added to contaminated water and stirred for five minutes. A 4gm sachet should be used for 10 litres of water. -- ST PHOTO: ALAN LIM
View more photos
IN SOME Third World countries where clean water is not a given, life now comes in a packet the size of a tea-bag.
Each sachet - at just 10 US cents (15 Singapore cents) - can disinfect 10 litres of dirty water in 30 minutes, which means a lot fewer cases of diarrhoea and disease.
To date, 70 million packets of Pur water-purifying powder, a product of Procter & Gamble, have been donated or sold to 40 countries or the non-government agencies operating there.
So 700 million litres of water have been made drinkable in places like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malawi, Haiti and Pakistan, under the company's Children's Safe Drinking Water programme.
Programme director Gregory Allgood, an industrial toxicologist, explained that Pur works like a dirt magnet. The powder combines a 'flocculant', which separates particles and organisms from water, and a disinfectant that kills bacteria and viruses.
Tests by the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention have found that water treated by Pur cuts the number of diarrhoea cases by up to half, said the Ohio-based Dr Allgood, who was in Singapore this week for talks with World Vision on a tie-up to work together in the region.
The 'Pur-fect' transformation
In just 30 minutes, dirty, murky water is turned crystal clear and drinkable with the help of Pur water-purifying powder.
... more
Pur, which had already won the coveted Stockholm Industry Water Award two years ago, garnered another prize this week: It beat more than 7,000 other project ideas to win US$2 million in the American Express' The Members Project contest.
Unicef, the United Nations' body for children's welfare, will decide how the money is spent to bring the benefits to even more children.
Pur has come a long way. Launched less than four years ago, it was to have been a commercial product that people could buy, like shampoo.
The company sank US$20 million from 2000 into research and development, and into building infrastructure to distribute Pur in four test markets - the Philippines, Pakistan, Guatemala and Morocco.
But only three million packets were sold. It just was not reaching the people who most needed it, and not enough infrastructure was there to bring it to them.
Dr Allgood said that when the company tried building that infrastructure, it dug itself into a deep financial hole.
But because he did not want the project to die, he suggested that the company continue making Pur, but on a not-for-profit basis.
It was the first time Procter & Gamble had done something like this in its 169-year history.
But there was good reason to do it: About 4,000 children were dying each day because they had no access to safe drinking water, he said.
Dr Allgood got the go-ahead to take the not-for -profit track just a month before the Dec 26 tsunami in 2004 - and 13 million sachets ended up in stricken areas, providing life-sustaining water.
Since then, Pur has helped prevent some 29 million days of diarrhoea and saved 3,850 lives in places where people have no choice but to use filthy water from rivers, ponds and streams.
Dr Allgood said: 'It would be fair to say that the project has been a humanitarian success, even if it was a commercial failure. But while you can do well as a company, you can also do good.''
He has often swallowed more than he has been prepared to, in the name of showing the power of Pur.
Once, in Malawi, a dead dog was lying on the bank of a stream where water for a demonstration was being collected.
He still drank it.
But what he sees on the road convinces him that this is work that needs to be done.
In a Kenyan village recently, the people were drinking 'liquid mud' - water collected from the same streams that cattle were defecating in. The need for clean water was so desperate that the water purified for a woman as part of a demonstration of Pur was promptly stolen.
He said: 'The woman got down on her hands and knees and begged for more sachets so her family could have clean water. It was pretty life-changing. I knew then that I wanted to dedicate my career to providing these people with help.'
He added that it was great to have saved lives, but children were still dying every day, 'so we have a lot of work to do to scale this up''.
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