How the Recession can Help Clean Water Initiatives

The Recession dominates headlines and millions of dollars of tax payers' money are being spent trying to stabilize our deeply shaken economy. But not is all lost. By stoking creativity, people are using our current state as a platform from which to develop new and exciting ways to use the recession to strengthen the planet in the long run.

It may seem like a stretch -- thinking that a financial meltdown can somehow motivate people into saving the planet, ensuring a higher quality of living, and promoting healthy living -- but when times are bad people seem to focus. They realize what is important and what needs to be done.

Clean water has been a global issue for decades. Millions of people from across the globe die each year from diseases that stem from contaminated drinking water. Granted, much has been done and many dollars spent. But the problem persists and people still need help.

The recession in the United States has provoked people. It has forced them to take a step back and reassess their situation -- what they feel is important and how they really want to live their lives.

This has resulted in thousands of people signing up for non-profit groups like the Peace Corps in an effort to help the neediest people. As far as clean water is concerned, the Obama administration has reserved millions of dollars for environmental issues. This will certainly help. But with more people committing to the cause of clean water around the world, and with more technology and attention, the recession may very well wind up being an important moment in the clean water initiative. 

Each year some 1.6 million people, most of them small children, die from diarrhea caused by poor water quality and unsanitary conditions. Many of these deaths are avoidable. Anyone with a back-yard pool knows dirty water is easily made safe by using good old-fashioned chlorine.

Since 1999 a branch of Population Services International has marketed a bleach solution in Zambia called Clorin. A few drops in stored drinking water kill the pathogens that cause diarrhea and other water-borne illnesses. (The nonprofit PSI is an international organization that runs programs to combat HIV/AIDS and malaria and to promote family planning.)

A one-month's supply of Clorin retails for 25 cents, a low price even by Zambian standards. Nevertheless, a number of policymakers have recently criticized the practice of charging anything, however small, for health products that are desperately needed in poor countries, products ranging from insecticide-treated mosquito nets to antiretroviral drugs.

Until these demands are met people will continue to get infected. Clean water is not an easy thing to achieve, but with foresight and dedication it can be attained. if there is one bright spot shining from the recession, it is the hope that the time and effort, the hours of care and study, will result in larger, healthier supplies of clean water -- worldwide.Â