A water production system that uses local micro-factories

The process replaces single-use bottles and provides income for the local operator

Spotted: The World Health Organization (WHO) calls the two decades-long progress in helping more than two billion people access safe drinking water “fragile”, as climate change exacerbates water insecurity. Globally, more than 800,000 people die each year from unsafe sanitation, drinking water, and hand hygiene. Bringing control of clean water sources into the heart of the community is an important means of improving local health. Swedish water technology company Wayout has created a way to do just that. 

Wayout’s modular production system cleans any source of water to make it safe for drinking and cooking. The company leases its systems to owner-operators and each micro-factory is built locally, requiring the minimum number of parts and materials and hugely reducing transport costs. A single water production unit can supply 8,000 litres of clean water a day, which is enough drinking and cooking water for 2,000 people.  

Designed specifically to replace single-use plastic bottles of water, cleaned water is stored in smart stainless-steel kegs with digital chips that monitor the healthfulness of the liquid inside. Taps on the system are connected to the cloud, helping owners understand patterns of use in order to best manage demand. Ozone is used to easily clean Wayout’s kegs. 

Cleaning the world’s polluted waterways is a global priority, and recent innovations Springwise has spotted have found ways to remove forever chemicals, as well as power wastewater treatment with nanomaterials and sunlight.

Written By: Keely Khoury