Glasgow Scientific Services Assist Malawi Water Charity

Glasgow Scientific Services have come to the rescue of “Waterforall”, a charity dedicated to the provision of safe drinking water in Malawi.

Jim Rae, a retired Local Authority water engineer who founded the charity, has been heavily involved in improving water quality for villages relying on drinking water drawn from wells. Jim is dismayed by the fact that every year thousands of Malawi villagers die from intestinal disease simply because the water drawn from boreholes has become contaminated due to poor sanitation and other contaminants in the surrounding area.

Jim’s charity seeks to develop a simple water treatment device to purify and improve the quality of the water drawn from wells and other water points. Having developed a prototype, Jim needed to know how effective his hand-operated device would be in making contaminated water safe to drink. Scientific Services came to Jim’s rescue by offering to measure the effect that the treatment process had on improving the quality of water artificially contaminated with E.coli. 

Microbiology Manager John Waddell explained that the laboratory routinely uses E.coli as an indicator of sewage contamination. Although the original design appeared to improve the visual appearance of dirty water, the lab’s tests showed that bacteria were not being successfully removed. However, after consultation between laboratory staff and Jim, the prototype system was modified and was found to be capable of removing over 99.99% of E.coli from contaminated water. Encouraged by these results, Jim now hopes to find funding to develop the device and to allow it to be installed in villages throughout Malawi.