Potable Water
Drinking water is an important resource in all communities. People need clean, good quality water o minimis, or better still, to prevent, immediate or long term health problems. Clean, good quality drinking water is commonly called potable water.
The water supplied to households in most developed countries is of drinking water standard even though less than 10% is drunk or used for food preparation.
However, in many parts of the world, the available drinking water contains germs or pathogens or unacceptable levels of dissolved contaminants or solids in suspension. Drinking this water, even when it has been used in cooking, can cause sickness and spread disease.
Water quality and contaminants
Human sewage and parasites are the main of contamination of water sources. Approximately 1.8 million deaths in 2006 were caused by contaminated water, a significant number of these deaths were amongst children.
It is estimated (2006 data) over one billion people in the world did not have access to clean drinking water.
Purifying water for drinking
Water sources will generally need some type of treatment before the water can be drunk.
The most common, and probably the best, way to purify water is to boil it. In many communities this requires more fuel than they may have available!
There are additional problems in being able to store the clean water in sterile bottles and pans.