KIMBERLY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A Kimberly company is using a $4.2-million dollar grant to continue developing a program to aid folks in Africa, India, and China.
Crane Engineering’s Mobile Septage Treatment System would turn human waste into non-potable water for agricultural and industrial use.
CEO Lance Crane says “the goal is to save lives and with this mobile system; it’s treating waste in these developing countries; we can save thousands of lives.”
Waste from outhouses is often left in water streams, leaving potentially-fatal pathogens.
Program Director Mark Hassman says the new technology would change things.
“Once they get it out of the pit, it’ll come to our process, we’ll treat it and then after the water’s left, we’ll leave it in the ditch, but it won’t have the bacteria that gets kids sick.”
Crane says the units will be sold to governments and businessmen, with prototypes expected to be developed and tested this summer.
“It’s going to be affordable to the market. We don’t want to just give these away, we want the market place and the entrepreneurs to be able to afford these units and use them.”
The World Health Organization estimates 361,000 children under five years of age die each year due to diarrhea caused by poor sanitation and contaminated water.
Crane Engineering is a leading distributor of fluid processing technology in Wisconsin and Upper Michigan.
It could make tens of thousands of units, potentially adding new workers to build, manufacture, and test the products.
