Brave Blue World (2019) - full transcript

There is no

close substitute for water.

It's the

most precious resource we have.

We are

not treating it as a crisis

when we should be

treating it as a crisis.

Imagine if tomorrow,

we cured cancer,

and in a hundred years,



there were still a million

kids dying of cancer.

It would be unthinkable,

but that's the situation we

find ourselves in with water.

The government has failed

in telling the

population the truth

about the situation

that we are facing.

About

7.7 billion people

have inherited the Earth.

Almost two billion of us



are struggling to survive

without clean drinking water.

The water crisis

isn't imminent.

It isn't looming.

It's here... now.

The UN estimated that by 2025,

1.8 billion people will be

living in water stress regions.

People are not gonna be

starving and dying instantly.

They're gonna be moving.

They won't have the resources

to live where they're at.

Contrary

to popular thought,

this crisis isn't just a

developing world problem.

It is already beginning to

impact everyone everywhere.

Our changing climate

is less forgiving,

keeping more water for itself.

Pollution is corrupting

our supplies.

Infrastructures

are failing faster

than they can be repaired.

And everyday, there are

more people in the world

all thirsting for water.

More often than not,

a water crisis isn't

an act of nature.

It's an act of humankind.

By not planning,

by not using the

right technologies,

and by not acting soon enough,

we set ourselves up to fail.

It's a

truly daunting crisis,

but what if the solutions

were already at hand?

Right now all around the globe,

an army of visionaries

and innovators

is working to reimagine

and reinvent water systems

to generate, supply,

and clean the water

we all depend on

for our very lives.

The water challenges

facing the world

really fall into

three categories.

First is the scarcity of water.

Second is building

resilient infrastructure

against climate change.

And third is doing all that

in a way that's

affordable for society.

The problem with

this crisis is

the water that's drinkable

is gonna start disappearing

and the water

that's not drinkable

is gonna start

appearing everywhere.

There are solutions.

It's just a matter of bringing

them to bear on the problem

and we can fix it.

We are running

against the clock

in terms of solving

these issues.

In a sense, it breaks my heart

that we have the

solutions, right?

And then we can't get

them out fast enough.

The demand for water to

sustain not only the population

but the lifestyle that we have

has grown just tremendously,

but we're still

trying to do things

the way we've done

them in the past.

Back around the

turn of the century,

really everybody was responsible

for their own sewage.

They were responsible

for their own water.

They drilled a well, dug a well,

or they got water

out of a creek.

And then they used a pit latrine

or a sewage lagoon

behind the house.

Of course, there were public

health issues with that.

People were getting sick,

and so the governments

around the world

kinda stepped in and said

that this is an intrinsic

government function.

We need to provide

for the safety

and welfare of the community,

and money's really no object.

So they ended up

with these incredibly

expensive sewer systems

where there's a pipe

to everybody's house.

There's a water pipe

to everybody's house,

there's a sewer pipe

to everybody's house.

Incredibly complex

networks of systems

that get old and all

have to be replaced.

And huge expense

associated with it,

but it provided a

safe environment.

It dealt with the public health

issues associated with that.

Attempting to

engineer our way our of trouble

is deepening the problem.

As we throw more

and more resources

at outmoded infrastructure,

the challenge is to let go of

an older inefficient system

and start to open our minds

to new ways of managing water.

Nothing focuses the

mind like a crisis.

So when Flint, Michigan

faced a shocking crisis

of lead contamination

in its drinking water,

activists not only

demanded change,

but actively sought creative

solutions to the problem.

One such creatively

focused mind

belongs to rapper, actor,

and entrepreneur Jaden Smith.

My motivation around water

started when I was

about 11 years old.

And it came from me learning

about the environment

from my teachers in school.

It got to the point

where I really wanted

to make an active change

and I wanted to do something

that could make a

difference in the world.

I always wanted to

go above and beyond

and just go across the world

and make an impact, and

make a change, you know?

I want to put a filtration

system in Africa.

I want to put a filtration

system in India.

As I started to

evolve these ideas,

I started to realize that we

have problems so close to home.

We have water sanitation issues

that are right here

in our backyard

that need to be addressed.

And seeing the effect

that this crisis has had on

everyone in Flint, Michigan.

When you see the kids there

and when you see

the elderly people,

that still they

can't use the water

that's coming out of the pipes,

it's heart wrenching.

We wanted to give

back to that community

and purify the water for people

who don't have access

for clean water.

That is why we did The

Water Box in Flint.

What it does is it filters water

and it delivers 10 gallons of

clean water every 60 seconds.

It's specifically made

to filter out the lead

and we have people on site

that are testing the

water every single day.

The entire plan and the goal

to make it work here first

and then to take it

places across the world

that are having the same

issues and say okay,

well maybe this is not a

lead problem over here,

so we can change the

configuration of the machine.

The goal is to have it

wherever it would be necessary

and to modify it for

that specific places

so that it wold work efficiently

just as it does in Flint.

Water is viewed

as a global issue

because it affects

everybody on the planet,

but really at it's heart,

it's a local issue,

because we have to deal

with it city by city,

town by town.

So what we see is that

people who are really

at the coalface

who are struggling with drought

or deteriorating water quality,

those are the

people on the edges

and on the fringes who

are really innovating.

And that's where

the future lies.

One innovator on

one such fringe is Beth Koiji

who had to think outside the

box when her well ran dry.

When I was doing

my undergraduate,

I think I was tired

of getting on and off

waterborne diseases.

So I started making my own

water filter in my dorm,

that heal or remove

all bacterias.

I started going to

community with it

showing people how to make a

simple filter in your house

because actually filters

are not that cheap in Kenya.

And in 2016,

Kenya was facing a huge drought

and we felt that people now

didn't see filters as a solution

because they actually don't

have enough water to filter.

The only choice here is to

fetch water from the river.

Children are sent to

the river the whole day

so they don't attend school.

The water has high level

of chemical contaminants,

so basically, you

cannot drink that water.

So we were looking

at something specific

that is able to utilize

the humidity in air.

Frustrated

with her own experience

of watching water scarcity

ravage her country,

Beth looks to nature

to solve the problem.

Getting water from air has

never been a new concept.

In nature, there are

some Namibian beetle

that actually have its drinking

water from the atmosphere.

There's six times more

water in the atmosphere

than there is in all

the wells around the world.

So that is a huge resource

that is yet to be

properly tapped.

She

designed a machine

that extracts clean

water from the atmosphere

and she calls it Majik.

Beth took her invention to

the Ark Children's Orphanage

so kids could focus

on education

instead of walking

miles for water.

These technologies

are very, very simple.

It works the same

as the refrigerator

and an air conditioner.

The air is pulled in by a fan

and then passed through

a condenser coil.

That's where the

condensing happens

and then the water is

dispensed to a collecting tank.

We just came from

a very dry season,

so this was the only

source of drinking water

for these children.

It's for security for them.

As long as you have air,

you can have clean

drinking water.

Technological

innovation isn't enough

in places where the

primary obstacle

to obtaining clean water

is something as simple

as it is elusive.

Money.

Today in 2019,

it's a million children a

year under the age of five die

because they lack access to

safe water and sanitation.

The very first water

collection I went on

was when the magnitude

of the problem hit me.

I was in a very rural

village in Zambia

and I was with this

14 year old girl.

She picked up the jerry can,

I picked up a jerry can,

and we walked off together

with an interpreter.

And we walked about a

while to this bore-well

to fill these jerry cans.

I asked her, "What are you

gonna do when you grow up?

"Are you gonna live

here in this village?"

And she looked around.

She was like, "No,

I'm not staying here."

She goes, "I'm going to Lusaka,

"I'm going to the big city."

She's like, "I'm

gonna be a nurse."

It reminded me of being

14, and with Ben Affleck,

and saying we're gonna go

to the big city of New York,

and we're gonna be actors.

I was just brought

back to that feeling.

And it wasn't until I

drove away that it hit me

that had it not been for

someone having the foresight

to sink this bore-well a

mile from this kid's house,

she wouldn't have any hope

for any type of

future whatsoever.

She would be spending her

entire day not in school,

but rather collecting water.

Please welcome Matt

Damon and Gary White.

I read one of the stories

from your organization

where there a woman who

was paying $60 a month

to get bottled water

delivered to her

so that she could have

something to drink.

Through your program,

she got a loan to have

her own water source

and then pays back the

loan at five or $6 a month.

Exactly.

Which is a simple

and yet insane concept

that nobody has thought of that.

-Is it that simple?

-Yes.

- Giving access to money--

- Yes.

To make their

own water source?

Yes.

And then they participate

in their own solution.

They fix their own problem.

what we do is we break

down the barriers

between people and safe

water and sanitation.

We're able to help

them with financing

so that they can afford

filters at the household level.

So that people

can enjoy the fact,

not just that they don't have

to walk for water anymore,

but they also have

safe potable water.

Having raised and deployed

about 27 million dollars

in philanthropic capital,

that has unleashed

1.1 billion dollars

in these micro-loans

so that people can get their

water and sanitation solutions

that best meet their needs.

The real success story for

us in this entire endeavor

has been the fact that

the loans that we make

pay back at 99%.

And that is astonishing.

To know that these are the

poorest people on Earth

and all they want

is that if you nudge the

markets toward them a little bit

and give them the dignity

to solve their own problem,

they will.

And if you think of them

instead of as a charity case

as a customer with their

own economic citizenship,

then you're gonna be

floored by what they do.

And we've done over three

million of these loans now,

so that 99% number is very real.

Of course,

access to clean water

is only part of the equation.

A healthy and sustainable

future also depends

on solving an equally

urgent aspect of the crisis.

Sanitation.

According to the Bill and

Melinda Gates Foundation,

poor sanitation causes

more than 1,200 deaths

of children under

five every single day.

That's more than AIDS, measles,

and tuberculosis combined.

Although the flushed toilet

and central sewer systems

are considered by many

to be the gold standard

for safe sanitation,

the solutions enjoyed

by developed countries

cannot simply be scaled

down for poorer nations.

Therefore, innovators

around the globe

are developing locally

appropriate alternatives

that can be safer,

more cost effective,

and more environmentally

friendly,

often, an individual

visionary can move faster

and more effectively

than any government,

like this man,

who has developed a

solution to sanitation

for some of the

world's poorest people.

I grew up in the slums.

And growing up in the slums

is you come across sanitation

challenges everyday.

Everyday when I go to

bed and before I wake up

is like how can I make

sure my brother, my sister,

my cousin who is still

facing sanitation challenge

has a different life.

Dixon's

company Sanivation

is a truly local solution

to a global problem,

providing home toilets

and waste treatment

for 20,000 people in Kenya

in an economically

sustainable way.

We have 126 homes

that we've been serving for

the last three plus years.

And we are really excited

to see the impact we make

into these families

week after week,

month after month,

years after years.

Initially, we

used to have a shared toilet

that was used by

the entire plot.

And it was unsafe because

most people are using

and it's unclean,

so it's not safe for

me and my children.

And right now, I have a blue

box that I can use at any time

and it's also secure because

I can use it in the house.

I'm so happy right now

because my family's safe.

Sanivation collects

human waste once weekly,

employing 98 local workers

to transport these materials

to their centralized

treatment facility.

But Dixon isn't satisfied

with simply offsetting

the spread of disease.

He's turning waste

into a windfall.

Once it gets here,

our first step is treating it

with our technology that

we just harness the sun

and ensure all the

pathogens are killed.

After that,

it goes to the next stage

where we mix it

agriculture residue.

And after that,

we have a product

that is from feces.

And it can be used

as a replacement

for the traditional charcoal.

With this charcoal,

there's no carbon emission

compared to the

original charcoal.

It burns three times longer

than the traditional charcoal.

That saves money.

On top of that,

for every ton of

this charcoal sold,

88 trees are saved.

The sale of the products we make

cover the operation costs,

so that makes our

model very attractive

and a good option

to the government.

Sanivation

is partnering

with the local government

to expand their reach

across Kenya and beyond.

This kind of

partnership is crucial

to expanding the

impact of innovations

like The Water Box, Majik

Water, and Sanivation.

But recovery of resources

from water and sanitation

are not just important

in the developing world.

Creative solutions

are equally important

in cities like Chicago,

home to the largest water

treatment plant on Earth.

A city of three

million residents

where millions of

gallons of waste water

are discharged

every single day.

We get about 750

million gallons of water

per day on average.

We could fill an Olympic

size swimming pool

in about 12 minutes.

One of the pollutants that we

want to remove from the water

is phosphorous because

in excessive quantities,

phosphorous in the waterway

encourages algae to grow

and other water plants.

And if you have too much algae

and too much water plants,

it can clog the waterway.

While an

excess of phosphorous

damages aquatic ecosystems,

the element itself is

a key component of DNA,

making it essential

to all living things.

But phosphorous is

a finite resource

that is disappearing fast.

Scientists fear

that there could be

a global shortage of

phosphorous as early as 2035.

What if we could remove a

pollutant from waste water

and mine the valuable

ore of pure phosphorous?

Short answer?

We can.

Phosphorous is bound up

in the organic material

which we separate

from the water.

When it comes out the end,

it's kind of soupy so we have

to draw the water out of that.

And when we pull the water out,

the water is very concentrated

in ammonia and phosphorous.

Now, if we take that stream,

and doing a little bit

of chemistry magic,

add a little bit of

magnesium chloride to that,

turn it into a product now

using some commercial

fertilizer methods.

And now we have a product

that can be sold as an

agriculture fertilizer.

Only, it's not just

like any fertilizer.

It's not just something

that you would substitute

for any other fertilizer

because it's a slow

release fertilizer.

What's better than turning

a waste into a resource?

And one that you can

make money off of.

There's a revenue

stream for this.

This is a commercial fertilizer.

It's sold and we get

a piece of the profit.

The cruel irony of

wastewater treatment

is that there's actually more

than twice as much energy

in the wastewater

as what you would need

to be able to treat it.

And so why are we putting so

much energy into something

to destroy the

energy that's there?

That's essentially

what we're doing.

It's crazy.

We have these tremendous

amounts of resources

just flowing through our pipes.

It's free.

And then we're spending a ton

of money to get rid of it.

Perhaps we need to

completely rethink

the concept of waste.

As they say,

one man's trash is

another man's treasure.

While Chicago prevents

the overgrowth of algae

by removing phosphorous

from this wastewater,

one maverick thinker

in Southern Spain

is deliberatively encouraging

the formation of algae,

harvesting a simple yet

overlooked resource.

Well, algae is actually

the oldest organism on Earth

because they survive

with three little things.

The sunshine, the

nutrients, and the water.

Here, we create our own algae.

Rather than waiting

for a million years,

we do it in three hours.

We have big basins

we call raceways.

That's where the algae grow.

We keep it in there

for three days.

We feed them with wastewater.

With flotation, we separate

the algae from the water

and pump it into the digestor

where it gets converted

into biogas or methane

once we add the gas

purification steps.

Nobody would believe

how much oxygen

algae can actually produce.

And that oxygen from algae

helps us to clean the wastewater

so that we have clean

water at the end

and what we have enough

algae that we can harvest

and use for biofuel.

Toilet to tank is really

what we're doing here.

It was always my dream.

I'm a car guy and I'm

passionate about cars.

I can take my wastewater,

put it in my car,

and drive off into the sunshine.

We could put these algae

ponds all over Andalusia.

It would be enough to

fuel 30 million cars

in Spain with bio-methane.

We can actually change the

world little by little,

step by step.

This kind

of lateral thinking

is also being applied

to the problem,

supplying fresh water

in many different ways.

Just as Majik Water imitated

the Namibian beetle,

other innovators are

turning to nature for ideas

to solve our water problems.

Imitating nature in this

way is called biomimicry.

Basically what we do now

is we go out and find water

of sufficient quality.

We treat it a little

bit as we need it.

We use it and then

we throw it away.

Nature doesn't do that.

Nature recycles every drop

of water on the planet.

The water we have today is

the water we've always had.

And that water has been

reused and recycled by nature

for billions of years.

Attempting to replicate

nature's own recycling process,

scientists in Denmark

looked for an answer

deep inside the cells

of our own bodies.

They discovered a protein

that can be accelerated

and adapted into a membrane

technology to purify water.

Peter showed up in my

lab one day as a graduate

just after graduating

with his little vial.

He always carries around

his little vial of

aquaporin proteins.

An average human has between

say 40 and 50

different variations

of aquaporin proteins

in their body.

They perform very

important functions

of regulating the flow

of different materials.

Think about what it would

be like if you ate food

or drank coffee,

if that immediately

went into your brain

and had a stimulating

effect on your brain,

you'd kinda go crazy every

time you drank a cup of coffee.

And so your body

has developed ways

of regulating the flow

of these different

molecules in your body

and an important part of that

are the aquaporin proteins.

So that's an example

where we've taken this

biological entity,

this biological protein,

integrated it into a membrane.

We actually reused nature's

way of filtrating water.

Using biotechnology,

we take out this small

aquaporin protein

that filtrates water

in all living cells,

which is extremely efficient.

It's not something

we have developed.

It's something that

nature has developed

through 3.8 billon

years of evolution.

We just stand on the

shoulders of that evolution.

One gram of this

aquaporin protein

can filtrate 700 liters

of water each second.

And so we coat the

surface of a membrane

with this aquaporin protein

and then we get

more natural water

and we can also instead

of filtrating water,

we can actually extract

water by forward osmosis.

We can open the doors

for an entirely new range

of filtration products

with this component that

nature has given us.

Membrane technologies

such as the aquaporin protein

are also being employed

to make dramatic leaps

in our ability to extract

freshwater from our oceans.

Seawater by the

name is highly saline.

And to push salinity

out of water,

you need a lot of energy.

And seawater is one of

the most costliest water

that you can get.

In terms of next innovations,

in terms of seawater treatment,

that's exactly where we are.

We were talking about

40 kilowatt hours

per meter cube of water

treated in the 1960s, '70s.

Now, we are talking about

less than four kilowatt hours

per meter cube which is

a 90% reduction in energy

for the same seawater treatment.

We are looking at technology

which is half that further.

We have an incredible

array of exciting innovations

today at our disposal

that we did not have

20 or 30 years ago.

We can create biomaterials

from wastewater.

We can turn wastewater

into energy.

We can purify water

at a molecular level

to do things that we could

have only dreamed of doing

a few decades ago.

At a leading

water research

center in Singapore,

membrane technologies

are also being employed

to make dramatic leaps

in our ability to extract

freshwater from our oceans.

While advancements in

desalination will continue,

perhaps a simpler solution

may be closer to hand,

reusing the water

we already have.

On the Pacific

Coast of California,

massive overuse of water

due to population increase

and industrial demands has

caused record scarcities,

sounding an alarm to the state

that the old way of

diverting water to the region

is no longer a viable option.

In Southern California,

we have a very dry climate.

We've become accustomed to a

certain amount of lifestyle

and water usage,

relying upon outside

sources of water,

namely from Northern California

and from the Colorado River

through aqueducts that

were put in decades ago.

When we started looking forward,

we knew that population

was gonna increase

and outside sources are affected

by the same drought here.

The

Colorado Aqueduct

transports water from

the Colorado River

to Southern California.

The transport of water is

extremely energy intensive,

costly, and now,

unable to supply

California's current demands.

This used to be a

heavily agricultural area.

It's called Orange

County for a reason.

It was full of orange

groves, soybean fields.

There's a long time perception

not just in California

but in a lot of the U.S. that

when you use groundwater,

it's kind of a natural source.

It's usually free

from contamination.

It's very good quality water.

That it will just

replenish itself, right?

Nature will do that for you.

Rain, precipitation.

It'll eventually recharge itself

to the point where we

can just keep using it.

But natural precipitation

is not enough.

We can't rely upon nature alone.

We thought where

else could we look?

So there's manmade ways that

we can recharge the aquifer

to keep it sustainable,

so that's when we thought okay,

let's take on this wastewater.

Mehul's

team worked hard

to persuade the government

that using recycled water

to refill the aquifers

would enable Orange County to

future proof their supplies

and avoid another drought.

This membrane technology's

very good at

removing contaminants

and purifying water

that was once thought

unable to be treated.

The great part about

putting it underground

is we lose virtually nothing.

We actually lose more,

when you see a large

reservoir or a lake,

you love a good

5% to evaporation.

You almost have a

natural protective cap

keeping it free from

environmental contaminants,

and so it's kind of nature's

perfect storage bowl.

We kind of hit the

geological jackpot

by having this large

natural underground aquifer

that as long as we

take care of it,

can sustain all

of our population.

Of course, in

many parts of the world,

large cities are continuing

to deplete groundwater levels.

While governments struggle to

get a handle on the problem,

that's where

industry can step up.

Mexico City, with its

population of 20 million

people,

is literally sinking

under its own weight,

causing roads and

buildings to crumble.

Relying on governments to

solve the problem isn't enough.

To make a major

impact worldwide

will require the

progressive engagement

of some of the world's

biggest users of water.

Industries need to rise up

to bring this in the

center of the agenda,

invest in technologies to

reuse water or recycle water,

save water so that

the future generations

are not in a bad place.

Industrial production

frequently involves water

usage on a massive scale.

Whilst the cosmetics industry

isn't the biggest offender,

innovation and processes

here have begun

that could influence

water usage

in many areas of manufacturing.

Because cleaning

equipment between cycles

is the most water intensive

part of production,

it is here where the

cosmetics company L'Oreal

have made the most change.

I think for us,

it's a company.

Water is important

because we need it to

operate effectively.

And in the areas where

water is critical,

we have to do all what we can

to reduce our impact

on these communities,

on these regions by water using.

So we have to reduce our water.

We started with water efficiency

to reduce our water needs,

then to reduce water

that we cannot reuse,

and then to recycle.

And we saw that water

efficiency is not enough,

so we started to

think what can we do?

And it was so obvious because

we discharge it wastewater.

In nature, no water is wasted.

We picked this as our

resource for freshwater

to replace city water.

Then we came up with

recycling projects.

At the end of 2018,

we had about 12 plants already

running with recycling.

Based on these

positive experiences

with the recycling systems,

we wanted to push the

system a little further

and we developed the

concept of dry factory.

Dry factory means

that 100% of the water needs

for an industrial process

is covered by the reuse of

treated and recycled water.

No city water is now

necessary for this purpose,

cutting down on water

consumption dramatically.

Now, we are rolling out

the dry factory concept

with priority to high

water consuming factories

and factories

operating in regions

where water is a critical

issue like here in Mexico.

If industry

follows this leadership,

the global water consumption

for manufacturing

could be drastically

reduced by as much as 90%,

depending on the

type of industry.

We don't have the choice.

We have to reduce our

environmental impact.

There is not a plan B.

Everyone has to be

aware and to contribute.

Cosmetic

manufacturing

is only one of many water

intensive industries.

For example, textile

companies like those in India

are some of the largest

consumers of water.

And many of them have

been major contributors

to regional pollution.

Poisoning water with dyes,

bleaches, and other chemicals,

and leaving their citizens

without usable water.

In 2010, the

government demanded

that all dyeing

and bleaching units

must either clean

up or close up,

threatening 55,000 jobs.

One textile factory

owner in Southern India

rose to the challenge,

discovering a

sustainable solution

and setting an example for

other factories in the region.

In 2010 and all,

there was a heavy problem

related to effluent.

There was untreated effluent

which was discharged.

The rivers were in color.

Because of dyeing factories

and chemical factories

chemicals were discharged into

the Noyal river.

If we walked into the river, we

would get all sorts of diseases.

Our feet and legs would

be in pain

and have a burning sensation

Now, we are putting on

continuous efforts and our

technologies are

getting updated.

The river which was

colored two decades ago,

now, it is all fresh and clean.

And now, it is a total

zero discharge unit.

Water

from the dyeing process

including bleach,

chemicals, and salts

is now treated

instead of being flushed

into local waterways.

And instead of taking

water from the rivers,

Rahul's company is

reusing over 90%

of its textile

processing water.

Now the situation is much

better

compared to even five

years back

Effluent from our factory

which has brine in it,

colors in it, salts in it,

that is taken to a plant

wherein it is stored for

about 24 hours in the bio.

There, it is all treated.

It is taken to the softening

plant and then to the membrane.

From the membrane, we

get all the reused water.

And the reject from that

is taken to the evaporator

wherein we get the salt

of the crystallization.

The water from the membrane

and the salt from the

evaporator is used here.

Ninety percent of the water

is returned.

Everyone is

participating together.

The chemical, the dyer,

and the membrane suppliers,

so it is all in a chain that

we are developing ourselves.

We are trying to keep our

industry environment friendly.

I think it is high time now

that everyone will have to

realize and start doing it.

No one can dodge

with this anymore.

In

another part of India,

the problem wasn't

pollution but supply.

In 2019, a city of

10 million people

experienced what was

once unthinkable,

but is now becoming

increasingly common,

day zero,

when a city simply runs

out of drinking water.

Everyone is after one

thing only in Chennai

and that is water.

Chennai is facing a

lot of water crisis.

Last year, we didn't

have rains at all.

Groundwater is not there

and rainwater is

not treated properly

and it's not connected

to all the sources.

And many apartments

have to rely on tankers

to supply them for water.

Recently, there was

a water tanker strike

for four or five days.

They are left without

having any water.

-

Day by day, it is getting worse,

so people need to just

do something about it.

Unlike most of

Chennai's 10 million locals

who were desperate for water

in the face of this crisis,

the almost 200 families in

this Chennai apartment are not.

How did these residents

avoid purchasing costly

water from tankers?

Resourcefulness.

See, as a teenager,

I've never thought

about it much.

But as a mother,

I want to give important things

like clean water to my kid.

We went door to door

explaining why we should

have rainwater harvesting

and how it is

supposed to be done.

Now, they're all trained up.

Everybody's doing that.

As a committee of commitment,

we decided that we

are not going to

buy a single drop of water.

So we have decided we

are going to upgrade

our sewage treatment plant.

We are going to upgrade

our water treatment plant.

We are going to upgrade

our rain harvesting system.

It all goes through the

rain harvesting trenches

and it will lead to the well

so that we are using the

water within our complex.

All this "upgradeation,"

well, it has given us

a fantastic result.

You can see behind me,

there is a beautiful

large green garden.

You may be thinking

from where you are

getting this much water

to make this greenery?

Absolutely, this is

not here groundwater.

This is water

which we reused from the

sewage treatment plant,

so it looks lush and green.

When I look through my window,

seeing all the other

communities close by,

I wonder if they have the

same water management system

as we do here in our community

that would help solve all

the water crisis problems.

We feel every drop

of water is so valuable

and we are not letting it waste.

It's a win-win situation.

Once you start to deal

with water more locally,

and that's a systems

level change,

not a technology change,

you reduce the capital costs

and you make it much

easier to reuse that water.

I go back to the

issue of scarcity.

Water reuse, we believe,

is one of the smartest

most efficient ways

for us to deal with that issue.

So more and more

of the landscape

is moving into indirect reuse

and going to full

water recycling.

In California,

we saw water conservation

at a municipal scale.

And in India,

we saw Chennai residents

of the building complex

taking water supply

into their own hands.

But could that be scaled

down even further?

Absolutely.

Here in the Netherlands,

a group called the

Dutch Water Alliance

has introduced

groundbreaking technology

that allows us to recycle water

right inside our own homes.

You see in industry,

measures are being

taken to use less water.

You see it in agriculture.

And so now, it's up

to us and consumers.

And we're wasting so much water

and it's so easy

because the water source

is already at our house.

The Hydraloop is a residential

gray water recycling system,

so it recycles water from bath,

shower, and washing machine,

purifies it so it can be reused

again for toilet flushing,

washing machine, garden,

and swimming pool.

We've created a very new

and innovative way of

cleaning the water.

We're using six

existing techniques.

We've combined them into one.

And they're all very

simple techniques,

and altogether,

they treat the

water in such a way

that is clean, clear, and safe,

and it's actually certified

to the highest

international standards

so it can be reused again.

Within once month,

we saved up to 3,000

liters of water.

And that's a lot

of water actually.

And so annually, we save up

to 30,000 liters of water.

It is our vision

that in 20 years time,

no house shall be built

without its own residential

water recycling.

I think if we don't

start living sustainable

and also water is

a part of that,

it will be a disaster in the end

for the whole world I think.

In 10 years time,

there will be 8.5 billion

people on this planet.

And if only 5% of those

will be recycling

their water in house,

it will actually stop the growth

of water uptake on this planet.

That really is the power of

residential water recycling.

Five,

four,

three.

Many innovations

in water filtration

were developed for applications

far away from the blue

planet we seek to preserve.

To deliver water to the

International Space Station

is very, very expensive.

It's tens of

thousands of dollars

per liter to get it up there.

Water recycling's a big

part of NASA's program.

For instance, on the

International Space

Station right now,

the only sources of

water are recycled urine

and recycled humidity condensate

which is the water

in your breath

that you generate

from eating foods.

We've developed some

technologies that are associated

with mimicking the function

of your small intestine.

We look at how does that work?

How does that small intestine

have this sort of

regenerative capability?

And then we go into

the laboratory.

We use genetic engineering

and a variety of

other techniques

and applying it to making

membranes to recycle the water.

Five, four, three.

You could bring a cup of water

and that's all you

would ever need.

You could just

recycle it around,

and around, and around again.

We have a lift off!

Tower clear!

It's

truly inspiring to

see these innovators

often with very

limited resources

saving their communities

and helping to stem

the water crisis tide.

But we can't simply leave

the solutions to the experts,

the engineers, the

innovative visionaries.

We all have a

responsibility to act

and to act now to create

this Brave Blue World.

If we can look for the beacons

and the examples where

people are already doing this

and it's working,

that's what's encouraging.

And then it's simply

a question of adopting

and accelerating

that adoption faster.

And a lot of what

needs to happen

is simply we have

to think differently

and embrace those new ideas.

And that's down to each of us.

For some of us,

action might take the form

of pressuring local utilities

to be more progressive

in their approach to water

supply and sanitation.

For others, it might

be applying our talents

to become part of the solution.

So ask yourself,

what can I do today to

be part of the solution?

The answers are all around us.

We can be more mindful

of our own water usage

and that of our

family and friends.

We can research new

technologies

like the ones we have just seen

and apply them in our home,

workplace, and community.

We can support companies

showing leadership

in water management

and we can encourage

brands we care about

to rethink their

water policies.

We can pressure our

local, regional,

and national governments

to take tangible action.

Letters, emails, petitions,

social media campaigns.

These things can

make an immediate and

lasting difference.

This is a solvable

problem, right?

We know what the answers are.

We've tested the answers,

we've seen the

answers out there.

We know we can

solve this problem.

It's just a matter of putting

together the business model,

bringing all the

pieces together,

getting governments to

provide the proper regulations

to support to allow

water recycling.

I don't think it's technology

that's holding us back from

solving our water crisis.

It has to do with finance,

and politics, and policy.

Banks control

two-thirds of the world's money.

If those banks made

it a requirement

for every loan that is made,

that there has to be a water win

at the back of that loan,

what an amazing

opportunity that could be.

One simple sentence to

the public about water

is demand more, demand better.

It's there.

You know, it takes

strong leadership

to make decisions

to go into areas

that haven't been

pursued before,

but to do it because we know

that it's the right thing.

It's the right thing

for our society.

It's the right thing

for our environment.

It's the right thing for

the future of humanity.

For some of us,

action might simply

take the form

of recognizing the

ineffable value of water

and being willing

to pay the price

for such a precious resource,

even in regions where water

appears to be plentiful.

Just as climate

change has sparked

grassroots activism

across the planet,

the water crisis too requires

massive mobilization of people

who truly care about

our shared future.

I think quite frankly,

we create a movement amongst

the younger generation

and they will

simply not tolerate

that we do things as status quo.

Each

positive step we take,

every innovation we employ,

every progressive policy

initiative we enact

moves the needle further and

further away from catastrophe.

This can happen

in our lifetime.

This has to happen

in our lifetime

or we are looking at

a very different world

for our children.

We want to see the

government committed

in putting in money

and supporting sanitation

to be a reality to everyone.

We envision a day

when everybody has access

to clean water and sanitation,

and we envision that

in our lifetime.

We're on the brink

of being hopeless,

but we're not there yet.

And if we really come together,

we can make a difference.

And if you look at these people

that are doing amazing

things around the world,

you start to be inspired

'cause you're like we

can make a difference.

Like how lucky are we

that we're the ones

who get to solve this?

In 100 years,

people are gonna wish they

could solve a problem this big.

♪ Every sailor

knows that the sea ♪

♪ Is a friend made enemy ♪

♪ And every shipwrecked

soul knows what it is ♪

♪ To live without intimacy ♪

♪ I thought I heard

the captain's voice ♪

♪ But it's hard to

listen while you preach ♪

♪ Like every broken

wave on the shore ♪

♪ This is as far

as I could reach ♪

♪ If you go ♪

♪ If you go your

way and I go mine ♪

♪ Are we so helpless

against the tide ♪

♪ Baby, every dog

on the street ♪

♪ Knows that we're

in love with defeat ♪

♪ Are we ready to be

swept off our feet ♪

♪ And stop chasing

every breaking wave ♪

♪ Every breaking wave ♪