How One Teen Is Reinventing Water Purification

Yash Balaji is a young man on a mission to provide safe drinking water to more and more people across the globe. This teenage inventor created CleanBottle, 1.8 billion people live without access to clean water. That means there are a lot of undeveloped countries around the world have harmful chemicals in their water. So even if the population in these areas has access to water, it may be extremely dangerous and harmful for them to drink. One teenager decided to invent an easier way to purify water, in hopes to provide more people with access to clean and drinkable water.

“I think that water is such a precious commodity,” Balaji says. And now, with global climate change, access to clean water is going to become less and less doable. Since 2010, the price of water in the U.S. alone has increased 40%. That percentage will only grow higher and higher if there isn’t some change being made in the water purification process. Balaji’s invention uses the heat of your hand to purify the water you’re drinking. It’s a water bottle that purifies the water it contains, using only your own body heat! Since you’re holding the bottle anyways, why not purify the water?

Balaji has always wanted to help the military in any way he can, and still wants to actively work with the military one day. Since he is color blind, the teen couldn’t work with explosive disposal as he had hoped to, so he transitioned his idea of helping from fighting ‘bad guys’ to fighting the war for clean water. Since it takes 300,000 gallons of water per day to sustain the deployed U.S. Military personnel, this teen’s invention could be ground-breaking. Balaji is a great example of how the will power of one individual for change can create an entire movement.