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Hi.
I'm Bret Steiman and I'm entering Agua Incorporated,
which is a US-based technology company, into the UNH Social
Innovation Challenge.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
From January to May of 2013, I spent five months traveling to
15 different countries around the world.
I had the unique opportunity of traveling on board a ship
with 12 start-up businesses including one dedicated to
purifying water around the world.
It was my introduction with Pedro Delgado Ortiz a European
entrepreneur that sparked my interest in taking its
European technology to the United States and using plants
to purify water.
It's clean.
It's ecological.
And we like to say it's sexy.
A microphyte plant has the ability to float thus creating
a perfect root ecosystem floating bacterial growth.
These bacteria break down bad organisms in the water.
Next we remove the solids from the water and the bacteria
purifies the remaining product.
The water is clean enough to be released into the river.
Our energy costs are almost free.
We remove odors and mud and ultimately eliminate the
complete use of chemicals.
I returned home to the University of New Hampshire to
find these microphyte plants growing in abundance.
And it's these roots right here that are actually growing
the bacteria that's cleaning this water.
Even with a higher electrical force, the savings in
chemicals on treating it to meet all the water quality
standards, it's so much less than using the Oyster River.
While you're proposing with the cattails, I can see a
benefit to the Oyster River due to the fact that it would
clean up some of the natural, how do I want to say,
dirtiness that we have to remove to make it part of the
water using chemicals.
You're using chemicals.
According to Daniel Peterson, the superintendent of
wastewater for the town of Durham, a modern conventional
system such as the one used in Durham would cost anywhere
from $50 to $60 million to install.
An Agua model intended to clean water for over 16,000
people requires half the maintenance, requires no
chemicals, and costs less than $4 million.
The town of Durham cleans 1.3 million gallons of wastewater
each and every day, and our plants can handle that.
My hope is to have a pilot program developed at the
University of New Hampshire, an institution dedicated to
stable practices and growth and to one day spread the
technology that is researched, grown, and homed at this
university across the world.