KX Industries (Orange, Connecticut) has developed a point of use technology that filters water free of viruses, pesticides, and bacteria, but has a running cost so low that very poor people will be able to afford it. The new microbiological system -- consisting of a dispenser and disposable filters -- uses nanotechnology fibers and removes anything from water that is not dissolved.

The company puts the retail price for the dispenser in the range of 6$-11$ (lasts 3-5 years) and the filter itself at $0.75-$0.80. A filter can clean 100 gallons, which is enough drinking water for a family for a month at the cost of about 10$ per year. This is hundreds less than one would originally have to pay for clean water. KX Industries spokesperson Kevin McGovern says it has designed the product a price point so that consumers are able to pay for the product with the change in their pocket. Not surprisingly, the company is targeting the product the 'base of the pyramid' markets, and believes that microcredit schemes may be useful in helping poor consumers purchasing the dispenser.

The development of this filter comes at a time when the UN estimates that 1.3 billion people already lack access to safe drinking water and by 2050 it will affect 4 billion people. Water-related diseases kill millions each year. It is also estimated that 6,000 children die every day with lack of access to drinkable water, and 50% of the world's hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from water-borne diseases.

Many of the UN's Millennium Development Goals are related to water access. It is widely known that women in Africa and Asia walk several kilometers to collect water. The UN would like to see the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water halved by 2015. But water scarcity problem is getting worse. Countries, such as Ethiopia and China will run short of water in the next 25 years.

The KX product has no leaching has passed developed country standards for processing clean water. Filters meet or exceed US-EPA standards for bacteria, virus and cyst limits, and also independently, California clean water standards. But KX Industries is being cautious promising a complete immunity for vulnerable users against water borne diseases, because it cannot for example control whether people wash their hands regularly or not. The firm says that around 2/3 of water-borne diseases may be impacted by use of this filter.

When filter needs to be replaced, it will stop working to prevent drinking "unfiltered" water. The used filters are non-toxic and can be disposed of as trash. Solid waste generation from disposed filter material is not considered serious because an average family is expected to generate around 12 used filter papers per year.

The global water market is currently $400 billion business growing at more than twice the rate of human population growth. Getting the filters reliably into the hands of customers is however not easy, people at KX industries feel. The company is currently looking at a number of production and distribution options, including tying up with the NGOs, local businessmen, doctors, pharmaceutics distributors and local governments, too, with India and Brazil as two countries to start distribution operations in. It expects the filters may become available in India around the last quarter of 2006.

KX Industries began as a partnership between Evan Koslow and Exxon and produced the first household water filters (Pur, Brita, etc.) in the USA. KX has 50 R&D people from 17 countries working together. The firm has a strong technological foundation has taken the OEM approach to marketing its filters in developed countries.

Monica Touesnard works with Bejing and Washington DC-based Energy Research Foundation, an international NGO working on low cost power generation gadgets.