With an estimated cost of $6.00 our water filter will provide the people of the Ganges river with clean drinking and bathing water. Only needing any sort of water bottle ( that can be cut) cost is 50 cents to $1.00, a handful of pebbles which is free, a folded up piece of clean cloth, free, a small filter from a window screen or pasta strainer this would cost about $2.00, and tacs or a rubber band to hold the screen in place which on average cost, $1.99. The reasoning behind the multiple filtration components is to strain the water while keeping harmful pollutants out. For example, in the educational video we watched there was talk of many dead animals in the Ganges; to counter this we decided to include the window screen. As far as the rocks, we thought that it would benefit us to use a natural filter as opposed to exclusively a cloth and window screen. The thought process behind the cloth is that it will be the final filter that gets rid of any of the leftover pollutants and bacteria, and as far as we can see it works very well.
In Varanasi, India, the Hindu population, which is the majority, worship the Ganges River which is believed to be a god named Ganga. The Ganges flows through the heart of India down to the coast and is the largest river in the country. People bathe in it in order to cleanse themselves of sin. They also put the ashes of the deceased in the river so they can go to heaven. This rigorous use of the river is slowly hurting the it with harmful pollutants. In Varanasi many are suffering from extreme poverty and poor sanitation. This forces people to dispose of trash and even human waste in the river. Even as the political dynasty of India prospers, it’s largest sources of water is constantly being polluted.
Another large pollution factor is the leather tanning industry. Heavy metals such as chromium, titanium and many others pollute the water. These all come from the process that is used to tan leather. This leaves harmful chemicals pouring into the Ganges. In addition, the ganges is suffering from the poor treatment it receives from the candles and plastic poured into the Ganges in large amounts. This is such a problem because the Indian people worship the Ganges every dusk and every night pollute the river more and more.
This project is about filtering dirty water into clean water, you can also donate to water.org to help people in Africa get clean water. If you just want to learn more about it the link is below. For more information please visit their website, I linked the website down below.