Ceramics is ideally suited to addressing the two most pressing problems of environmental health in the developing world: pathogen contaminated drinking water and air pollution around cookstoves. Interventions for these are the water filters and cookstoves here indicated and these are genuinely sustainable. They are highly effective, low cost, user-friendly and reproducible almost anywhere, by the poor and for the poor, using available clays and resources. What¿s presented here should make it easy for would-be projects to freely implement the technologies specific to household scale: household water filters and environmentally responsible cook stoves. These water filters and the cookstoves can be produced nearly anywhere using resources that are widely available and many livelihoods will be made possible.

Reid Harvey is a Ceramic Industrial Designer focused on Environmental Health and Development. His aim is to get training to local ceramists and their neighbors so that their communities will be self sufficient.