From the Series
The Drinkable Book serves as both a safe water filter and an information tool to provide its user with vital information on water safety. Developed by McGill University PhD student Theresa Dankovitch, the pages of the book are made with a special filter paper that works like a coffee filter: you pour the dirty water through to produce clean, drinkable water.
Each thick page of The Drinkable Book is embedded with silver nanoparticles, which effectively kill microbes. Dankovitch has shown that The Drinkable Book pages reduce bacteria count by 99 per cent, comparable to any other available water filter. But the paper costs very little to print, making it the cheapest water purifier on the market. These filters also meet US EPA guidelines for bacteria removal from water and will help prevent waterborne diseases such as cholera.
Each filter paper can last for a couple of weeks, meaning that a single Drinkable Book could provide someone with clean drinking water for around a year.
While providing clean water, the book also provides information and advice on how to prevent water contamination: pages are printed with information about keeping waste and water separate.
Dr Dankovitch has teamed up with the nonprofit WATERisLIFE and together they have successfully trialed the paper in Ghana, Haiti and Kenya. The book is still in development, and Dr Dankovitch and WATERisLIFE are currently crowdfunding for their pilot distribution.
