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Decentralized treatment of drinking water and its safe storage in specially designated storage vessels, prior to be used for household daily needs, with the purpose of preventing illnesses and improving health, is defined as Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage philosophy. Moreover, primary water collection and storage in different types of containers, from leather bellows, wood vessels, and ceramics, to glass and metal, has been a common practice for years, demonstrating that the concept of safe storage for domestic drinking water and the eventual treatment, is not new. Society and technological development, nowadays, transformed the concept of drinking water as a local need to a global need. Presently, more than half of population worldwide is supplied with tap water in their homes by using individual household connections. Access to safe, adequate, sufficient and physically accessible and cost-effective tap water is a fundamental right, essential for our daily comfort. Seen as a long-term goal, water availability determines the quality of drinking water supplied to households. Since water is not always considered safe for use in terms of quality, in most of homes the use of treatment devices is sometimes recommended. This safety measure typically provides a final “extra” step following a treatment process granted by a centralized water treatment system, administered by a municipal authority or private entity. The benefits of Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage (HWTS) technologies is used to improve water aesthetics and/or to remove certain harmful contaminants that are presented in this chapter, including possible organic, inorganic or microbiological substances present in the household’s drinking water supply. Considering the location of the device, either at the point where the main water supply is defined or at the point where the drinking water is withdrawn and enters the house, they can be identified as “point-of- entry” or “point-of-use”. In the industrialized countries and regions, household drinking water treatment is foreseen as an additional barrier of safety to a water source which has already been treated upstream or it is of a certain known quality. For households, that are more likely to bear the burden of water-related diseases due to the lack of a drinking water supply through a connection or other “improved” water supply such as a public pipe, a borehole, a protected well/spring water or rainwater, the use of drinking water treatment devices is imperative. Due to various factors, namely minimal maintenance designs, use of local materials, applications under demanding special conditions, public acceptability and economic sustainability, the study and development of household drinking water treatment devices has been a process of adaptation to the concrete geographical conditions of that area and public health practices. Nowadays, on the international market, there are a plethora of options for home drinking water treatment and safe water storage that are feasible and cover the safety needs of a local small community. Optimizing the potential of HWTS technologies and the scale-up of these systems will make available the use of this technology globally for millions of users to meet the enormous need for safe water for the decades to come. |
