17 Comments

theres something mildly offensive about this

the insinuation that the developing nations are asked to cycle on a stupid small blue bicycle for a service we take completly for granted, just so they dont contribute what would presumably be a small amount of C02, to a planet suffocating under the weight of the wests gigantic C02 output.

It also assumes there are paths that you can cycle along, they dont have many cycle-lanes in developing countries. they have a lot of uneven, potholed and generally un suited to cycling roads which a heavy water-laden bike would struggle down.

and that we then slap ourselves on the back for coming up with such a hare-brained scheme as if we're really contributing something to the planet's welfare.
would you HONESTLY get on this thing, fill it up in your local river then ride it over a field in order to purify water in order cut your own personal c02 emmission. i doubt it, so it takes the piss we expect other nations to do the same surely?

design wins again
Rich
2008-01-17 17:32:35

i think it's a great idea, and even if you can't cycle over fields etc as 'rich' stated... the technology could be left in a place/village where once they have transported the 'un-filtered water' the bike could be used to filter it, so it does have a use.

BRAVO!
monkey
2008-01-17 18:19:53

Nice idea, although it would seem there a bit TOO much in the way of presentation, i've never seen a bike with as much plastic! The wheels and far too thin for a dirt track, they aren't even mountain tyres, they're hard racing tyres as far as i can see.
Nice idea, wouldn't say it solves the problem tho, wonder how expensive it is?
Hume
2008-01-17 19:43:11

Please just don't take the water from thirld-world countries like mine.
Brokenglish.blogspot.com
Brokenglish.blogspot.com
2008-01-17 21:31:25

This is a good crack at the issue, but not perfect. Filters become a new requirement for families in need, they better be cheap.

Rich: The response you're looking for is
1.) We're all using crappy fuel sources, some more than others, and
2.) Us rich people can take responsibility for our own stupidity. But if you tell a person not even getting clean water that now they can't use oil or firewood to pasteurize the water... guess what response you're going to get from them?

This is a good start, considering we have to cover everyone in this situation.
Chris
2008-01-18 01:04:09

I'm with Rich on this one. Granted, it is a truly neato idea. But I've visited villages in the developing world that are literally littered with these kinds of contraptions (human feces-powered stovetops, solar panels, etc.) that some well-meaning hippie from the local US sister-school university brought over in the 70s and that haven't been used since.

We're going to have a tough time convincing people with hardcore West-envy to ride around on goofy (if neat) bicycles when they could be driving one of these:

http://jalopnik.com/343003/the-2500-tata-nano-unveiled-in-india

You tech school sophomore types have some nifty ideas, and obviously something has to be done to cut emissions from soon-to-be-everywhere vehicles like the Nano, but please. Market-driven solutions only from here on out, OK? If people don't want to use it, it's not going to solve anything.
Jack_Spratt
2008-01-18 02:07:32

It would be way cooler if the stationary bikes and eliptical machines at the local health club would run generators to recharge batteries in member's electric cars, would store energy to power the lights, etc. Say the members got a discount on their memberships according to how much energy they produced. Good motivator, too.
H
2008-01-18 03:11:06

I'm more excited by the filtration system. In some places human beings are drinking directly from slow moving streams containing dead animals(like cows) floating just feet away. Some are Drinking from rivers containing raw sewige.

Put that filter on a stationary bike...inside their homes.
Entire families could drink clean water...while getting a great cardio workout
BeSmarter
2008-01-18 08:13:29

Rich, you said it in your first sentence. You take clean water for granted.

1.1 BILLION people do not have clean water. That leads to disease and death. In some countries the average life expectancy is under 35.

If your child's life depended on clean water so s/he didn't get malaria, and there was no infrastructure, no water treatment plants, not even any laws regarding public health and sanitation, if the ONLY way you had to get clean water for that child was one of these trikes, do you have the gall to tell me you'd still sneer at it? What if only two or three people in your village had one and you DIDN'T. Would you be tossing off that privileged naive bullshit then?
JWF
2008-01-18 08:47:29

I agree with Rich - this is an incredibly sanctimonious invention, placing the unreasonable demand upon people in the developing world that they be carbon neutral in their collection of clean water, something that should be a natural right for all; meanhile we in the west expend many times the CO2 they could ever produce every time we indulge in luxury such as taking a plane on a holiday.

It's even more insulting given that the energy needed to power it (food energy) is often in short supply in the developing world. Far from being a great "cardio workout" this invention will only increase demands on an already meagre diet. Starve yourself or have clean water - that's not the kind of choice we should be offering the world's poorest.

A clever and more useful idea would have been one that used energy from a waste product - dung from animals, the bits of plants people can't eat, weeds, other food waste - which would make no additional energy demand on people and would be reasonably sustainable - if you kept it to just plant matter, it would even be carbon neutral. But that's a fringe benefit, the priority is clean water and there are plenty of ways of doing it without further burdening the world's poorest.
Chris Applegate
2008-01-18 13:31:28

"A clever and more useful idea would have been one that used energy from a waste product"

completely agreed
VJ
2008-01-18 16:54:10

“A clever and more useful idea would have been one that used energy from a waste product”

That's not the brief. The competition was to use pedal power, hence the Specialized sponsorship. I think it's a pretty clever idea, especially considering that it can be used stationary too. In a choice between walking and carrying water to/from a water source to purify it at home, or cycling the distance with the bike carrying the weight and purifying, I know what I'd choose.

But yes, the 'reduction in CO2 emissions' is pretty ridiculous in this context.

Cardio workout? **Puts fingers in eyes**
Ed Wright
2008-01-18 17:14:27

Cleaning and transporting water is a serious life and death problem in many places and a major barrier to quality of life and economic development in many others, so kudos for thinking about that.

It would be much more efficient to treat water at a central location and transport it in bulk than to have everyone treat and transport their own supply. Individual treatment does give people a secure backup supply.

Filtering is great and could save countless lives, but it doesn't protect against all waterborne illness. For really safe water you need to disinfect it with chlorine, ozone, UV radiation, or by other methods. I didn't explore the design, so maybe that's included somehow.

Many people get their contaminated water from nearby wells, so lifting water up is more of a barrier than moving water around.
Nick
2008-01-18 19:05:05

I have to say that the idea doesn' t seem so bad. The water has to be transported some way. Isn't this better than breaking their backs and getting home with dirty water? Maybe there aren't exactly cycle lanes around there, but bycicles were built long before them and used on any kind of roads in the beginning. Of course, probably this solution should be implemented just in the places were it really works. Not there where the locals have to bring water from the top of the mountain. They have the Tata Nano for that :)
Mini
2008-01-19 04:37:19

I have to agree with Rich. There's a rather imperialistic mindset that says that developing world people should offset carbon by pedalling instead of using generators, while ad execs jump on planes to Cannes to congratulate each other for their carbon-saving schemes.

There's a great article about it here

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/3788/

In a feature about carbon offsetting in The Times (London), it was revealed that the leader of the UK Conservative Party, David Cameron, offsets his carbon emissions by effectively keeping brown people in a state of bondage. Whenever he takes a flight to some foreign destination, Cameron donates to a carbon-offsetting company that encourages people in the developing world to ditch modern methods of farming in favour of using their more eco-friendly manpower to plough the land. So Cameron can fly around the world with a guilt-free conscience on the basis that, thousands of miles away, Indian villagers, bent over double, are working by hand rather than using machines that emit carbon.

Welcome to the era of eco-enslavement.
Brian
2008-01-19 11:21:40

Ingenuity and application of the idea is a sound and a refreshing innovative product design. Yes the prototype is maybe less than market ready but I'm sure these design students had little to no dough to make this happen.

It's amazing that a pure and honest attempt to explore a global issue generates so much negative energy. The first comment by RICH "theres something mildly offensive
about this" is an incredibly negative attitude. Every sentence of his critique is toxic.

Hey Rich, what have you contributed to world lately? [Deleted by moderator] I hope you're
not a creative.

PROPS to Calif. based design students keep on this path of product design development Take all + and - critique as constructive.
john
2008-01-19 19:59:05

are you american john?
rich
2008-01-20 20:32:35

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