Cleantech Disaster Relief: How Today’s Technologies Can Avert Tomorrow’s Disasters

We all remember sights of people lined up for clean water in Haiti after the devastating earthquake in 2010, or in Japan last year after the great tsunami hit with horrific consequences. Large scale natural disasters will unfortunately continue to be a global threat. Beyond the initial loss of life and home, they also wreak havoc on basic infrastructures putting food, clean water, and electricity out of reach, for as long as months in their aftermath.

While preventing natural disasters is next to impossible, providing for populations in need following such disasters is most definitely not, and can mean the difference between a few casualties and thousands. One Israeli company, in particular, has developed a unique product ideal for such situations.

EZPack, formed in 2010 by Danny Cohen, Alex Harel and Ohad Zecharia, has created a unique way to transfer clean, drinkable water to disaster areas and other emergency zones, while still maintaining its quality and purity. The start-up makes use of innovative pillow bladder tanks which consist of a PVC outer layer, and “food-graded” material within. This dual-layer system creates a highly durable transportation apparatus while allowing the transferred water to remain clean, drinkable and uncontaminated for extensive periods of time.

While EZPack has not yet had the opportunity to put their product into action in disaster areas, it has already been deployed with great success for homes and remote locations (pillow bladder tanks serve as ideal low-space water storage for both homes and off-site projects such as oil rigs) and has been approved by the Israeli Water Authority for water distribution in emergency situations.

EZPack’s unique solution represents what is hopefully a growing trend in cleantech, an effort to use “green technology” to provide relief in emergency situations. As the world grows ever more connected, international crises, whether in Haiti, Japan, China, Chile, or elsewhere, must be responded to by global, technologically advanced solutions, and cleantech might be just the industry to create them.

Article appearing courtesy Israel NewTech.