After riding in the scorching summer heats for 8 to 10 hours a day and earning less than 10 US Dollars a day, they have a tough time providing for their families as it is. Thinking about a safe source of drinking water is the last in the list of things they have to think about. The idea was to build a safe drinking water solution around their existing lifestyle - The Pedal Pure works with the kinetic energy generated by the rickshaw puller themselves as they pedal and take riders over to a destination of their choice. Once the ride is finished, the rickshaw puller gets to have a drink of the water that he himself filtered. With a membrane filter that filter’s out impurities, the Pedal Pure become a safer alternative to water in his and his family’s daily lifestyle.

A small-scale survey was conducted to understand how much a rickshaw puller can afford to spend to improve on the current situation. The findings suggested that if they don’t have to spend anything it’s the best for them! Considering this fact, the technique was to provide a solution that adds value to their lifestyle. A modular design, which takes less than 15 minutes to install and could be done by the rickshaw pullers themselves, would add to the acceptance of the solution. They would be more willing to adopt the idea, if it didn’t disrupt too much of their daily life. A peristaltic pump was locally designed and paired with a membrane filter. The overall cost of the Pedal Pure system was kept at a minimum so that giving it away would make sense. After initial prototyping and water tests, the system was installed in Rickshaws in Dhaka.

The campaign was implemented with 5 rickshaws in the Dhaka, with more on the way.

No matter how simple the technology is, the technique at times needs to be shown hands on. So, the idea of Pedal Pure was generated to give the migrant population of Dhaka city a safer alternative to drinking water, and show a direct link with the power of pedal and integrate it with the power to filter your own water. A self-sufficient approach needed to be shown to a problem as grave as unsafe drinking water.

Bangladesh is one of the world’s most densely populated countries. 150 million people are crowded onto low-lying land where annual monsoon floods contaminate water sources and leave millions with appalling sanitary conditions. According to research done by Water Aid, over 21 million people in Bangladesh lack access to an improved water source. And 38% do not have an access to an improved water source.

Hence, limited or no access to safe drinking water leaves the migrant population in the city at risk of water borne diseases, leading to deaths related to these diseases.

Water Aid noticed this suffering of the rural Bangladeshis and wanted this situation to be solved.

Dhaka is a city known for it’s rickshaws – the pedal powered trishaws that are beautifully ordained and the most eco-friendly mode of transport available in the city. The city has over 600,000 of them, which serve the 20 million of its residents. Due to the huge requirement, there is a huge surge of a migrant population that come to the city in search of a better living – only to find conditions worse than what they were used to. In a country where over 4000 children die due to poor water and sanitation conditions – more than 65% of the population does not have access to safe drinking water. The objective was to provide a safer water alternative to the migrant population and their family members living in the city.