Who’s thirsty?
Did you know that 780 million people — that’s two Americas and a Russia — don’t have access to clean drinking water? Well, UNICEF wanted you to know. So they built a machine that turns your sweaty T-shirt into a mouthful of drinking water that’s cleaner than what comes out of your tap:
The device spins and heats the material to remove the sweat, and then passes the vapor through a special membrane designed to only let water molecules get through.
Since its Monday launch, its creators say more than 1,000 people have “drunk other’s sweat” in Gothenburg.
Swedish engineer and TV personality Andreas Hammar dreamed up the desweatifier, which was inspired by a space contraption that makes astronaut pee drinkable. Using membrane distillation, a GoreTex-like substance serves as the Gandalf-esque gatekeeper, allowing no salt, bacteria, or clothing to pass — nothing except steam.
The only problem? Swedish people apparently don’t sweat very much. A single dirty T-shirt only produces a third of an ounce of tasty fresh water. “The demand for sweat is greater than the supply,” ad agency exec Mattias Ronge told the BBC.
Clearly they need access to my laundry basket.
Check out the making of the sweat machine:
