GENEVA (AlertNet) – For seaside communities with low incomes, a simple plastic cone could save hours spent walking long distances to inland water sources.

The Watercone, a durable plastic container the size of a car wheel, makes salt water drinkable without needing electricity or any high-maintenance technology.

“It has to be small enough to handle,” said its inventor, Stephen Augustin, a German industrial designer who got the idea from travelling in developing countries. “It needs to be mobile so you can move it into the sun if it’s in the shade.”

To produce a litre of water in 24 hours, the cone’s Frisbee-shaped base is filled with salt water, which evaporates in the sun and condenses in the curved edge of the cone. It is then poured out through a spout.

Exhibiting the product at the Aid and Trade convention in Geneva, Augustin and his manufacturers, Zeltec, say the cone could be useful for poor communities living by the sea or inland salt water.

They suggested it could help prevent people contracting cholera from Lake Malawi.

CARE Germany is using the cones in a pilot project in Yemen. The results are being monitored by the U.N. Children’s Fund, UNICEF, and will be completed at the end of March.

As well as removing salt, the process cleans water polluted with mercury or arsenic.

Augustin said a family could use one cone per child. The devices produce just a litre a day – about four or five glasses – but Augustin said larger cones would be impractical.

Each cone and pan costs about 50 euros ($62). At this price, the devices would only be viable for distribution as aid, although the manufacturers said the price could go down over time.

Augustin said he did not envisage the cones as a sole source of drinking water. “It’s an alternative,” he said.

OUT OF THIN AIR

Augustin is not the only inventor squeezing drinking water from unlikely sources.

The AirWater system promoted by Universal Communication Systems is hardly a household appliance, since it requires expensive equipment, technical maintenance and electricity, but it does produce potable water from air.

The invention could be made in a range of sizes, from a portable contraption as small as a water fountain – making 25 litres a day – to a device as large as a container truck.

“It could made thousands of litres a day, to supply a whole camp, or a whole village,” said Harel Nahmani, operations manager of Millennium Electric.

Millennium Electric makes cases for laptops, mobile phones and cameras that contain solar panels to recharge the equipment’s batteries. Like AirWater, it is a subsidiary of Universal Communication Systems.

For $38, you can buy a case that will recharge your cell phone in three to four hours of full sunshine, and for $114 you can buy one to recharge a laptop computer in the same time.

Nahmani said he thought the products would be most successfully marketed as gadgets in wealthy countries, but could also be useful for aid workers.