Response to third presentation

The one major concern that was addressed to us about our most recent presentation last Thursday was the idea of outsourcing our products from China. The class made arguments that if we are going for the "environmental" mindset, that doing business in China, a country highly polluted and really far away from the US will completely negate our environmentalist ideals. With that in mind, we will have to not produce in China, however there is still cheap labor close to the United States (Mexico and other latin American countries) that will lower our carbon footprint tremendously.

Water Bottles

The main chemical found in Nalgene bottles is BPA. It is a chemical that is released 55 times more powerfully when hot water is added to nalgene bottles. The chemcial affects reproduction and brain development which has a harmful effect on humans. Nalgene is fighting back and making BPA free bottles. BPA is also found in plastic water bottles. The bottom line is that it is dangerous to reuse plastic water bottles, and if people need to buy new BPA free Nalgene bottles anyway, why not buy Filtra. Another substitute for Filtra are glass water bottles. This is a strong substitute but it is not reliable or sturdy. It is dangerous to be carrying around a glass bottle. Filtra is BPA free and made of a material that will not break.

Economic Logic

Just like the printer industry, we plan on selling our bottles either at cost or just for little profit margins and then selling our filters for a high markup.

Filtra is nothing without a new filter, so if we get a lot of people to buy our bottles for cheap (hopefully $10), then they would have no problems with spending maybe $10-$15 on a filter that doesn't cost nearly that much.

We would like our bottles to be designed with the same material that Sigg is made out of but they are very secretive as to what processes they go through to make their bottles and because of that we cannot price it, but we suspect that if we buy these bottles in bulk we could get great deals on them.

Wall Street Journal

On November 6th, 2008, the Wall Street Journal wrote an article titled "Aiming for clean water on the go" where they analyzed a bunch of different water bottles and the conclusion was that "while we were intrigued by the idea, we found most were hard to use."

This provides yet another opportunity for our idea to work. The image on the left shows a sleek design in what Filtra could look like. With an unscrewable cap, people are able to drink easily but it is not as big as a Nalgene top so that people do not spill on themselves.

This design will be changing over the next few days because we believe that the filter would be better used on the top of the bottle instead of the bottom, but this design still looks much better than any of the other bottles that are out in the market now.

design

Here are the designs we are working with..

Saratoga Springs Tap Water

In 2006, Thomas McTygue then commissioner of public works, signed a document explaining the annual drinking water quality report. In the report it was stated that, after analyzing the water, there was found barium which was admitted into the water probably from discharge of drilling waste and from metal refineries. Also included in the list was copper and lead which lead from the erosion of household plumbing and natural deposits. Nitrate was also found in the water which came from runoff of fertilizer use and leaching of septic tanks. There are also radioactive contaminants including Radium 226 & 228?

Though New York State deemed this not a violation because they were of decent proportions, did you realize that you were drinking lead every time you drank a glass of water? How about putting fertilizer into your system, or even some poo? How could that be safe? or even tasty?

It can't. The document even says that many people may be vulnerable to disease "causing microorganisms or pathogens in drinking water" and that people "should seek advice from their health care provider about their drinking water."

Saratoga Springs residents need something different, and that is where Filtra comes in. We would provide a safe and refreshing way to drink water out of the taps that we have locally Our filters will be able to remove the contaminants that is found in Saratoga tap water and be able to keep our community safe.

How to make a homemade filter

Looking online, it seems very easy to make a simple PVC water filter. This link explains how to do it. http://saltaquarium.about.com/c/ht/02/03/How_Simple_PVC_Tap1015628827.htm

It asks for certain products

1) 2 & 1/2 inch PVC pipes. After looking on Nextag, it is possible to buy an 8 pack of 8foot PVC pipe for $37 which equals out to about 12 cents per 2 & 1/2 pipe

2)PVC end cap. These caps in bronze come to about $5.43 but it is unnecessary to have a brass coated one, so it may come to much cheaper

3) Vinyl hose. A vinyl hose can be bought for $15.64 for a 69 inch hose. Using approximately 2 inches, that comes to about $.45.

4) A drill. A drill does not have to be bought as it is a household item.

5) Activated carbon. Activated carbon comes to about $125 per cubic foot which equals about 25 pounds. Assuming we will not need more than 2 ounces per filter, that is only $.65 per filter.

Though this is a rough estimate of what we might need and our next step would be to go make one, this filter listed above could come to as cheap as $6.65. That is assuming we use a $5+ brass PVC end cap which can definetely be avoided. That is a very feasible price.

I looked around to see how much water filter cartridges cost.  I found the Aquapure CBA5N cartiridge which costs $16.10; another Aquapure filter which is a little better cost $16.47.  The average eco-friendly Sigg water bottle cost 21.99.  If we are looking to see these bottles at the $20 range we are going to have to make our own filters from scratch and find cheaper stainless teal water bottles.  This project is now about developing the filter technology.

Materials

Market Research

On October 22nd, 2008, we sent out a survey to certain members of the Skidmore community. Since that time we have gotten many results and really good information.

Over half of the people we surveyed drank tap water from Saratoga and 65.6% stated they do not like the taste of this water. Approximately 75% say they know the health and environmental impact that tap and bottle water have and 43.8% said they would like an alternative that is good for them.

The best number that we came across, however, was that when asked if they would buy a portable water filtration bottle that gets rid of the taste and the bad chemicals in Saratoga water, 71% said yes and 19.4% said they would need more information before they purchased one.

This is a great result. 71% of the people we surveyed said they would buy our product, that is a HUGE market. We were striving for 30% so this makes it even better. For our last blog post, Professor Wales commented that we need to see if we can make some orders, this survey shows that we have some sales already. Now we just need to make the product...