I grew up in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is a place where rain rarely occurred thus naturally no infrastructure was built to deal with it. However, once it rained for 3 days and 9 people died. It was a huge shock for everyone. That’s a thing that has stuck in my brain ever since. When I came to Pakistan I noticed it rains a lot here but they’ve made proper sewage system to take care of it or have they? Upon furthering researching, I discovered Pakistan faces many fatalities during monsoon season. Just last year in August 2020, due to heavy rain death toll for Pakistan reached up to 134. That would have been devastatingly alarming in any other country. Needless to say, I want to build a sustainable design that help people with rain.
Rain water as deadly as it is for this country it is also drinkable even without filtration. Scientists go as far as to say it’s safer than tap water. Water prices are rising and experts are cautious that the phenomenon of cape town might occur in other cities too. Cape town is the first city in the world to run out of drinkable water. “Water will be the petroleum of the 21th century” says the bank goldmansachs. When water starts running out, 3rd world countries like ours will be the first one affected thus I want to create a design that can help with it even if its little.
Rain is not the only source of drinkable water of course. Pakistan has many rivers and freshwater lakes but sadly they are currently polluted. Morino Morikawa is a Peruvian-Japanese scientist who has a master’s degree in Interdisplinary Biodiplomacy and a doctorate in Environmental Sciences. Morino grew up in Peru around lake El Cascajo. That lake later became too contaminated and Morino decided to use his knowledge and any means to clean the lake. The process to decontaminate the lake took him 15 days. Because of his efforts, more than 70 species of birds and fish returned to the area. Seeing his work inspired me to make something similar to help clean the lakes in Lahore.
While researching for purifying liquid cheaply. I came across this powder called Polyglu. It is a special powder that can improve water quality. It is manufactured by a small Japanese company. The key ingredient of the powder is a polymer of the amino acid glutamic acid, a coagulant made from fermented soybeans, which helps quicken the coagulation of impurities in water. It is a safe and eco-friendly flocculent. One gram of the powder can treat up to 5L of polluted water, depending on the cloudiness of the water source. The product can also be used in water with varying acidity levels and temperatures. Waste water can be treated too, however it cannot be fully purified, requiring further filtering in order to be safe to drink.
Keeping all this in mind. I will try to come up with a design that can tackle some of our water based problems.
//week 14
Design Fiction 