For safe, clean water
What started as a social outreach programme for a village by a housewife resulted in a life-saving invention, writes Nur Zarina Othman
TENG Yu-Mein may not be a familiar name but this mother of a 16-yearold teenager is well known to many who have benefited from her invention — the Efinity EZ Water Filter system.
The filtration system provides clean water without using electricity and is effective with minimum pressure.
It all started when Yu-Mein and her friends went on a social outreach in Kampung Simpai, Negri Sembilan.
As it had rained the day before, the stream at the Orang Asli settlement was murky and obviously unsuitable for consumption.
Seeing the Orang Asli community drinking the dirty water spurred Yu-Mein to do something about it.
LIGHTBULB MOMENT
The idea for her water filter invention comes, strangely enough, from a steam iron.
“It’s all about using air to create pressure. As I sprayed water on the shirt, the idea came to me,” she says.
Using a 1.5-litre water bottle filled with water, Yu-Mein made two holes on the cap, one for air to be pumped in using a bicycle air pump, and the other to connect the bottle to a ceramic water filter.
The simple water filter system can produce up to three litres of filtered water in one minute, which is sufficient for a family to use.
TAKING THE FIRST STEP
On completing the prototype, Yu-Mein returned to the Orang Asli village to test her invention.
“I could see smiles on the Orang Asli faces as it was the first time they were seeing clean, filtered water,” she says.
Yu-Mein also submitted her invention for a competition organised by Yayasan Inovasi Malaysia where she was among the six winners to receive RM30,000 to produce a working model.
With the grant, she created a mould and within a couple of months the first batch of her invention was ready for distribution from a plastic injection factory in Klang. The cost of her invention? A mere RM99.
Apart from the Orang Asli community in Kampung Simpai, villagers in Gombak, Tapah, Bidor and Mantin also benefited from her invention.
Yu-Mein’s achievements do not stop there. Her filtering system won the prestigious Anugerah Inovasi Negara in 2016 from the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and was placed second at the Swiss Innovation Challenge 2017.
CROSSING BORDERS
These days, Yu-Mein’s Enfinity EZ water filters are also shipped to Cambodia and also Bangladesh to help the Rohingya with safe and clean water for consumption.
Flood victims in Sri Lanka last year also benefited from these water filters.
Yu-Mein hopes her invention will continue to save lives in places where getting clean water is a problem and the death rate from diseases caused by consuming dirty water is high.