Ever thought of drinking/tasting your or a friend’s sweat while
thirsty? I guess, ‘NO’. Recently, UNICEF promoted an amazing Sweat Machine
which turns perspiration into clean drinkable water. The promotion
was a part of campaign organized by UNICEF to create aware about water and how
can we save and properly utilize each drop of water.
The sweat machine was presented in the public for
the first time during a water scarcity awareness campaign by Unicef, which was
held in Sweden.
The inventor of Sweat machine, Andreas Hammar is an engineer and
TV personality based in Sweden. According to the inventor and Unicef, the
machine first takes away all the sweat from our sweaty clothes with the help of
a spinner, then heating and filtering of the sweating liquid is done in order
to remove the impurities after which only the clean water remains in the system.
An estimation made by The United Nations agency reveals that more
than 780 million people worldwide fight the unavailability of clean water for
drinking and cooking usage.
“It uses a technique called membrane distillation”, said Hammar in
‘The Independent’. Hammar also said, “We use a substance that is a bit like
Goretex that only lets steam through but keeps bacteria, salts, clothing fibers
and other substance out”.
The
machine has been currently set up in Gothenburg where more than a thousand
people have already tested and drunk the water processed from sweat.
"They have something similar on the Space Station (International Space Station) to treat astronauts' urine, but our machine was cheaper to build. The amount of water it produces depends on how sweaty the person is, but one person's T-shirt typically produces 10ml, roughly a mouthful.” said Hammar.
Peter Westberg, Deputy Executive Director (D.E.D.) at UNICEF, Sweden said, “We wanted to raise this subject in a new, playful an engaging way. Our Sweat Machine is a reminder that we all share the same water. We all drink and sweat in the same way, regardless of how we look or what language we speak. Water is everyone's responsibility and concern."
The idea of the inventor to turn sweat into drinking water is highly appreciable. It is a nice small step to fight the bigger clean water scarcity the humans are supposed to suffer in the near future. What do you think friends? Earlier sweaty and salty (and tasty!), the clean drinking water (sweat) may ‘be’ alright to us until it is not extracted from someone else sweat.