How to Make a Working Water Filter - Experiment

Most people know about the indigenous peoples and what happened to them but just knowing what happened isn’t enough when problems like the Indigenous water crisis are ongoing. For the longest time this crisis has taken place inside of Canada ruining the health of many indigenous peoples. In 2015 there were 126 advisories and our President, Justin Trudeau announced that in March 2021, all of these advisories would be gone and all the affected indigenous peoples would have clean and safe water to drink. He wasn’t able to keep that promise however he had made a significant difference. Still 6 years later in 2021, 33 advisories are still left. The number also seems to be going up. This lack of clean water for indigenous people is 1 of the greatest violations of the UN-recognized human rights which is why Justin Trudeau decided to make change in the first place. The Liberal Government isn’t doing anything good as well because they keep trying to promote public-private partnerships (P3’s) which cost more, make a loss of community control and jobs and lead to the privatization of water meaning it is not the solution to this. Having clean and safe water is necessary for reconciliation with the indigenous peoples otherwise they will always have the impression that the Canadian Government does not like them. 73% of the water systems that indigenous peoples have are at medium or high risk of contamination and with advisories dating back to 1995 like the Shoal Lake 40 First Nations, this could become a lot higher. The dirty water causes illness and waterborne pathogens. Justin Trudeau has lifted 108 advisories since 2015 making 535 projects, preventing 182 short-term drinking water advisories from becoming long-term and investing $4.27 billion to make the change that the indigenous peoples need. This is great but it is not enough which is why I decided to do this experiment so you could see just how bad this problem has become.

Here I am making a water filter which is a representation of how a reverse osmosis (RO) filter works. This is quite obviously a small working model however it is a very close representation to what companies use to filter water. Also this water is not consumable so please don't drink this without boiling it!

1 Pair Of Scissors

A Water Bottle (a regular nestle one will do or a 1L one is fine as well)

Cotton

Clean Sand (I didn't have sand around me/where I am so I went out to get some hence why it's blue)

Activated Charcoal

Gravel

Pebbles

Dirty Water

**DO NOT PUSH YOUR COTTON ALL THE WAY DOWN THE OPENING, THERE SHOULD BE A BIT OF SPACE**

About 2 - 3 tbsps

About 2 - 3 tbsps

About 2 - 3 tbsps

About 2 - 2 1/2 tbsps

Here you can see how dirty mine is before filtration.

Here are 2 videos of me pouring and showing you my filter in action

This filter is like reverse osmosis (RO) and it’s a process that removes dissolved inorganic solids like calcium and magnesium ions. The water is forced through a semipermeable membrane and when the water is passed through the contaminants are left behind. This uses no electricity, has little to no waste water and offers the finest level of filtration plus you can easily do it at home.

The larger things are at the top and the smaller ones are at the bottom but this is for a reason. The gravel and pebbles filter out the larger toxicants and on a larger scale would filter out things like visible dirt, leaves, animal waste, etc. The charcoal does it’s job with adsorption which is just how it filters out contaminants and is like a middle section which catches the last of the big toxicants and begins catching the smaller ones. Sand is for all the fine toxicants and contaminants that didn’t get caught before. The cotton at the end catches the last of the toxicants that might have been passed down from any of the above or just didn’t get caught yet making an almost clear liquid. This done on a larger scale makes sure that the water is completely safe to drink however this water filter should not be used on any basis to drink from normally. It’s just an experiment.

Removes taste, colour, sediment, odour, bacteria, hardness

Removes germs, viruses

1 of the best methods for filtering water

Dirty:

Non-point source pollution is a big cause of water being dirty. It spreads out because of runoff and the runoff includes fertilizer, pesticides, soil and chemicals which harm the rivers, lakes, oceans and ultimately drinking water.

Point source pollution comes from sewage treatment plants, factories and storm drains which affects waterways and the ocean even if it’s really far away from them.

Groundwater is 1 of the main sources of clean drinking water but it gets polluted very easily. The runoff of rain enters deep parts of the earth filling up little crevices which pollute aquifers. The aquifers can then be unstable and be unable to provide clean and safe drinking water for decades.

Transboundary contamination is not as common but still happens when 1 country spills it’s water to the other for any reason.

Agricultural contamination is also a common problem and a big water polluter. It happens when rain causes animal waste, washed nutrients, pathogens (bacteria/viruses) to enter waterways which ultimately pollutes waterways for people.

Radioactive Substances are caused by nuclear power plants, uranium mining, universities and hospitals using radioactive materials for research and medicines and the production and testing of military weapons. Even though it might not seem common, it’s actually not that rare and very dangerous.

Surface water is contaminated with nitrates and phosphates.

Other reasons:

Water is able to dissolve more substances than any other liquids which is why it gets contaminated so easily and the last reason for it to get contaminated is with industrial water discharge.

Clean:

4 steps of how companies make water clean:

Coagulation and flocculation (chemicals added to water, form floc)

Sedimentation (floc settles to the bottom of tank)

Filtration (“The clear water on top passes through filters composed of sand, gravel and charcoal to remove dissolved particles such as dust, parasites, bacteria, viruses and chemicals”)

Disinfection (chlorine kills bacteria/parasites, fluorine added to prevent tooth decay)

The Curve Lake First Nations are surrounded by 3 freshwater resources but residents still cannot make good use of it because it has waterborne illnesses. The new chief of the Curve Lake First Nations, Emily Whetung, said that she lived her whole life without being guaranteed clean water. So much water pollution kills people and in 2015 globally 1.8 million deaths were caused because of this. Even though in Canada this is happening more consistently to first nations, this isn’t only their problem. This is a global problem. Every year almost 1 billion get sick because of unsafe water as well because of the fact that the water contains waterborne pathogens, giardia, cholera and typhoid. All of which are extremely dangerous. Canada being a water rich country shouldn’t be treating it’s first nations people like this especially when there are sources of freshwater around them that they still cannot use. There should be an absolute guarantee of clean water in our whole country because if there isn’t then we are not using our water properly. Sometimes First Nations people are in disparate and far locations which can have weird geographical land allowing you to only reach them by plane and in case of that this process of restoration becomes a lot harder and expensive. This shouldn’t stop our country from making sure these nations have clean and safe drinking water though because our country can handle the expense and hard labour. These First Nations have bad chemicals and viruses in their water. The Curve Lake First Nations has E coli in their water, the Grassy Narrows has toxic heavy metals in their water, the Algonquin nation has many different types of waterborne diseases and Neskantaga has been under a water advisory since 1995. There are definitely many more Indigenous and First Nations communities that are under water advisories or have very bad water issues but if I were to list them it would take a lifetime. Even children get eczema or other skin diseases and some even get gastrointestinal disorders. The chief of the Curve Lake First Nations, Emily said “Water is life” which could not be more true as it’s such an important resource in our life and we cannot live life without it.

Feasibility Studies

New System Design Work

Interim Repairs On Existing Systems

Permanent Repairs To Existing Infrastructure

Construction Of New Infrastructure

Improved Training And Monitoring

Eliminating Short Term Advisories So They Don’t Turn Long Term

Spreading Awareness

Monitoring Our Use Of Water

Being Careful About Our Actions With Water

Thank you so much for reading through this and possibly making it!

I really appreciate it! :D