Financial Times

Brandix brings good drinking water to deprived residents near Colombo
Residents of Rajapakshapura in Seeduwa, who didn’t have pure drinking water, have had their prayers answered by apparel giant Brandix Lanka.
In keeping with its outreach initiative “Water is Life” to provide safe drinking water for those most in need, Brandix commissioned a desalination plant for the people of Rajapakshapura to provide potable water. Prior to this, this community has had to pay between Rs 3000 to 4000 a month per family to obtain water that is safe for drinking, the company said.

The desalination plant which was installed at a cost of over Rs 4 million was commissioned in the presence of Jeyaraj Fernandopulle, Minister of Trade, Commerce, Consumer Affairs and Highways and Directors of Brandix Lanka.
GAP, Inc, one of the world’s largest specialty retailers and the single largest apparel buyer out of Sri Lanka, is partnering Brandix in this initiative.

Fernandopulle thanked Brandix and GAP for “providing an innovative and permanent solution to the water crisis in this community” and advised the people of Rajapakshapura to use this precious resource responsibly.
According to investigations conducted by the Water Resources Board, the quality of water in Rajapakshapura was not suitable for drinking due to the high content of calcium, iron, chloride and sulphate in the water.

Through this constructed plant which includes four additional tanks and pumps, water is forced across a membrane, leaving the impurities behind using reverse osmosis considered the most economic process for desalination of brackish water and seawater. Through this process, both dissolved organics and salts present in water are removed.

Hilary Nath, Environmental Engineer at Brandix Finishing, explained that “over 97.4% of the world’s water sources consist of sea water with 2.6% frozen in snowcapped mountains or glaziers leaving only a nominal 0.01% for drinking. According to World Bank estimates this fast depleting resource will be the cause for war and this will happen during our lifetime.”

He said the use of desalination overcomes the paradox faced by many coastal communities, that of having access to a practically inexhaustible supply of saline water but having no way to use it.

Although some substances dissolved in water, such as calcium carbonate, can be removed by chemical treatment, other common constituents, like sodium chloride, require more technically sophisticated methods, collectively known as desalination. In the past, the difficulty and expense of removing various dissolved salts from water made saline waters an impractical source of potable water. However, starting in the 1950s, desalination began to appear to be economically practical for ordinary use, under certain circumstances.

As a result of Brandix Lanka’s initiative, over 450 families residing in Rajapakshapura will now have access to free, pure drinking water for the first time in this village. The average daily output would be around 7000 litres of water.

Brandix’s ‘Water is Life’ initiative is a long term and ongoing commitment focusing on increasing the availability of water and provision of safe drinking water to those most in need.

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