Clean drinking water, a basic human need, is unfortunately not widely accessible in the communities Lobitos and Piedritas. About 16% of the Peruvian population has no access to clean drinking water. Residents are often forced to drink unclean, unsanitary water, leading to widespread illness in the communities. Our project seeks to provide the two towns of Lobitos and Piedritas with widespread access to clean drinking water by producing simple water filters, known as solar stills, around the communities. Solar stills are simple water filters that are entirely reliant on the natural process of evaporation to purify water. Therefore, the stills don't require any external power sources and produce no pollution or runoff. Our solar stills present a simple, easy-to-use, and cost-effective solution to a significant problem facing much of the population of Lobitos and Piedritas. Our proposal seeks to construct and install 50 solar stills between the two communities, with 40 going to Lobitos, as the larger town, and 10 going to Piedritas, the smaller of the towns. By our own calculations, our solar stills hold the potential to meet up to 44.7% of the two communities drinking water needs, significantly reducing the amount of water in the towns that is unsafe to consume. This, in turn, can reduce the public health issues the towns face from the consumption of impure water, and subsequently reduce the waste management issues the illnesses perpetuate. Our solution also produces several job opportunities in the way of oversight, operation, and maintenance of the solar stills. Improved access to clean drinking water, improved public health, and an improved waste management issue could make the town more attractive to tourists- one of the towns' primary industries.
Our project not only seeks to address the lack of water infrastructure in the two communities but to improve all aspects of life for the residents of the two communities of Lobitos and Piedritas.