What is the name of your organization?
The Better Kitchen Sink
What is the name of your solution?
The Better Kitchen Sink
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
A low-cost, low-tech, and sustainable water filtration system empowering communities to access clean water.
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Pennington, NJ 08534, USA
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
United States
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
The filter has been designed for individual/in-home use for low-resource communities, giving citizens living on less than $2/day a means to filter clean water for their families. The filter is affordable and immediately accessible. No infrastructure is needed. It empowers individuals to influence their own clean water solution. The use of the filter also presents an economic opportunity for entrepreneurs to sell pre-made water bottle filters with no startup cost or training. We have been testing and implementing the filter in the Dzaleka Refugee Camp, located 50 km from Lilongwe, home to forcibly displaced people fleeing genocide, violence, and wars in Burundi, Rwanda, and the D.R. Congo. The camp, originally designed for 12,000 residents, is home to 52,000 refugees. There is significant congestion at the camp that affects water supply, sanitation, and other basic living conditions. Additionally, we have implemented filter use in rural villages in Malawi and India. Our filtration system will provide families with an accessible source of clean drinking water, reduce waterborne diseases, improve hygiene, empower individual citizens, and provide income opportunities for entrepreneurs.
What is your solution?
Our innovative solution, The Better Kitchen Sink (BKS), is an in-home water filtration system capable of cleaning greywater - making water reusable for washing clothes and dishes - and purifying stream water - making it potable. The BKS system includes a polypropylene sink and 4 water bottle filters, housing rocks, sand, and cotton balls. The replaceable filters screw into threads molded into the polypropylene sink. As greywater is poured into the sink, it percolates through the filters, resulting in debris-free water. To make water potable, an additional pre-treatment step is needed. Calcium hypochlorite is mixed into the contaminated water before it is poured into the sink. The calcium hypochlorite reacts with the bacteria in the water, resulting in the formation of orange beads. Then, the treated water is poured into the BKS, and the water bottle filters capture the bacteria, leaving purified, debris-free drinking water flowing out of a tube. Importantly, since the harmful bacteria are captured inside the water bottle filters, they are safely removed from the environment.
Project video showing how product works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyKRb_tKSYk
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
The filter has been designed for individual/in-home use for low-resource communities, giving citizens living on less than $2/day a means to filter clean water for their families. The filter is affordable and immediately accessible. No infrastructure is needed. It empowers individuals to influence their own clean water solutions. The use of the filter also presents an economic opportunity for entrepreneurs to sell pre-made water bottle filters with no startup cost or training. We have been testing and implementing the filter in the Dzaleka Refugee Camp, located 50 km from Lilongwe, home to forcibly displaced people fleeing genocide, violence, and wars in Burundi, Rwanda, and the D.R. Congo. The camp, originally designed for 12,000 residents, is home to 52,000 refugees. There is significant congestion at the camp that affects water supply, sanitation, and other basic living conditions. Additionally, we have implemented filter use in rural villages in Malawi and India. Our filtration system will provide families with an accessible source of clean drinking water, reduce waterborne diseases, improve hygiene, empower individual citizens, and provide income opportunities for entrepreneurs.
