Annotated summary

The article “Innovation in safe drinking water” written by McAfee Sheehan (2018), who is a part of a non-profit organization that attends to poverty and hunger stated that drought has brought epidemic, lack of proper food and shortage of potable water. Somalia an underdeveloped country that faces drought in most of its region for over one-fourth of the century. Only 45% of the people in Somalia can obtain purified water therefore, this causes an outbreak of many waterborne diseases especially cholera which took the lives of hundreds of people every year. There is an insufficient of water-treatment system and storage to minimize the possibility of water caused disease. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Somalia introduces Polyglu as a water treatment solution. Polyglu main compound generally found in Japanese food named natto also known as fermented soybean. This compound can clump most of the impurities in the water and settle in the bottom of the container result in clear water. Five liters of polluted water can be treated by one gram of Polyglu powder. This solution is used by many non-developed countries such as India, Bangladesh, Somalia, and Tanzania. Even though this powder can treat water, it does not entirely purify it. Hence, a proper method such as boiling of water should be followed for safe consumption.   

The polyglu powder was able to help many underdeveloped countries then, it should be very useful to conserve water in developed countries such as Singapore. Therefore, this article gives me a piece of evidence to assist my claims in the water conservation research project. 

Reference 

Sheehan (2018). Innovation in safe drinking water. Retrieved October 20,2019, from 

https://borgenproject.org/tag/polyglu/